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> We had The Oregon Trail as part of teaching materials in our school in the 1980s. > In the UK. You may be misrembering - a Mac would be very rare in a UK sc

> We had The Oregon Trail as part of teaching materials in our school in the 1980s. > In the UK. You may be misrembering - a Mac would be very rare in a UK school - it was probably an Apple II.

Doctor_Fegg 5y ago
We had a room of BBC Micros, a room of RM Nimbuses, and a room of Macs at school (UK). The Macs were evidently the coolest. Pretty much the first thing I did when I got to university was buy a IIsi (funded by the articles I was writing for an 8-bit magazine).
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  The Nimbus was such a disappointing machine. At least the 380Z and 480Z looked like they came from a sci fi movie.
  - zabzonk 5y ago
    > At least the 380Z and 480Z looked like they came from a sci fi movie. Nah. they lookd like what they were, clunky bent-steel boxes. I agree the Nimbus was a dead-end.
unfocussed_mike 5y ago
I didn't say anything about a Mac. Though I accept I am taking it way off topic with my little grumble. Really I'm just still smarting at being told off :-) It absolutely wouldn't have been an Apple II; I never saw an Apple II in the UK until they were retro. It would have been a port to the (similarly 6502-based) BBC Model B. We had loads of those in schools [0]. A bit of a google suggests that it was likely based on code from a 1978 computer listing, though it would have been 1983 when it was inflicted on us. Funnily enough I don't think we spent more than half an hour with the computer. A week or so with the assignment. [0] the Apple II would have been more expensive, and didn't provide the opportunity for schools-television-related content or a loan of the county's (truly groundbreaking) Domesday Book laser disk system: https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8384600/bbc-domesday-system-community-laserdisc-laser-d https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co83846...
- zabzonk 5y ago
  > I didn't say anything about a Mac. True, but this is a post about Macs - see title.
  - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
    Yes -- edited my comment. I'm really just dragging it off topic and should be ignored :-)
soneil 5y ago
I went to a .. I want to say not very affluent school in Scotland, but that'd be an understatement. But we were taught to type on classic macs. I don't remember exactly what model, but definitely these ones with the little offset grin. All I really remember is a shufflepuck game. That's it. Just to confuse things, this would have been about 1995. That awkward gap between the beebs, and Tesco taking an interest in the matter.
skissane 5y ago
> You may be misrembering - a Mac would be very rare in a UK school - it was probably an Apple II. Getting even more off-topic, but I remember being a kid/teen in 1980s/90s Australia, and the diversity of machines we got to use at school impresses me in hindsight: Apple IIs, Commodore 64s, classic Macs, Acorn Archimedes, IBM PC JXs running DOS, Atari STs, no-name IBM PC compatibles running Windows 3.x/9x and Netware. (Not all at the same school, that was across four different schools I attended K-12.) My own kids don’t get exposed to anywhere near as much technological variety.

> We had The Oregon Trail as part of teaching materials in our school in the 1980s. > In the UK. You may be misrembering - a Mac would be very rare in a UK school - it was probably an Apple II.

Doctor_Fegg 5y ago

We had a room of BBC Micros, a room of RM Nimbuses, and a room of Macs at school (UK). The Macs were evidently the coolest. Pretty much the first thing I did when I got to university was buy a IIsi (funded by the articles I was writing for an 8-bit magazine).

unfocussed_mike 5y ago
The Nimbus was such a disappointing machine. At least the 380Z and 480Z looked like they came from a sci fi movie.
- zabzonk 5y ago
  > At least the 380Z and 480Z looked like they came from a sci fi movie. Nah. they lookd like what they were, clunky bent-steel boxes. I agree the Nimbus was a dead-end.

unfocussed_mike 5y ago

I didn't say anything about a Mac. Though I accept I am taking it way off topic with my little grumble. Really I'm just still smarting at being told off :-) It absolutely wouldn't have been an Apple II; I never saw an Apple II in the UK until they were retro. It would have been a port to the (similarly 6502-based) BBC Model B. We had loads of those in schools [0]. A bit of a google suggests that it was likely based on code from a 1978 computer listing, though it would have been 1983 when it was inflicted on us. Funnily enough I don't think we spent more than half an hour with the computer. A week or so with the assignment. [0] the Apple II would have been more expensive, and didn't provide the opportunity for schools-television-related content or a loan of the county's (truly groundbreaking) Domesday Book laser disk system: https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co8384600/bbc-domesday-system-community-laserdisc-laser-d https://collection.sciencemuseumgroup.org.uk/objects/co83846...

zabzonk 5y ago
> I didn't say anything about a Mac. True, but this is a post about Macs - see title.
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  Yes -- edited my comment. I'm really just dragging it off topic and should be ignored :-)

soneil 5y ago

I went to a .. I want to say not very affluent school in Scotland, but that'd be an understatement. But we were taught to type on classic macs. I don't remember exactly what model, but definitely these ones with the little offset grin. All I really remember is a shufflepuck game. That's it. Just to confuse things, this would have been about 1995. That awkward gap between the beebs, and Tesco taking an interest in the matter.

skissane 5y ago

> You may be misrembering - a Mac would be very rare in a UK school - it was probably an Apple II. Getting even more off-topic, but I remember being a kid/teen in 1980s/90s Australia, and the diversity of machines we got to use at school impresses me in hindsight: Apple IIs, Commodore 64s, classic Macs, Acorn Archimedes, IBM PC JXs running DOS, Atari STs, no-name IBM PC compatibles running Windows 3.x/9x and Netware. (Not all at the same school, that was across four different schools I attended K-12.) My own kids don’t get exposed to anywhere near as much technological variety.