Ahh...The Oregon Trail....

Remember when THIS was the coolest computer game around? I gotta say, I'm not much of a gamer because, frankly, I don't have that kinda free time. However, I recently "acquired" this game and, I gotta say, I feel like I'm in elementary school all over again. Remember the old Macs this game ran on? With the little rainbow apple sticker on them. Remember back when you could practically count the pixels on the screen?

I was an Oregon Trail maniac back in the day. Being able to play on the school computers, even for a few minutes, was the reward everyone worked hard to earn. I remember that computers were so "new" and expensive that my elementary school only had about a dozen at first. That meant that in kindergarten and first grade we had to play in pairs. I was a master of shooting buffalo (still am) so, I was always designated "the hunter". I loved to hold down the arrow keys and spin while shooting all around. (Prolly why I don't own any firearms at the present....) My partner always got mad because we'd run out of bullets halfway through and then die of starvation.

Lately, I find myself gravitating toward The Oregon Trail when I'm stressed, busy, tired, bored....just about any time I don't want to be an adult. There's something oddly comforting in entering the DOS prompt, looking at the cartoony graffics super-imposed on the black screen and hearing the tinny themes of my childhood. Even though it's cheesy and ridiculous, as I totally admit to, it's somehow a lot more fun than DDR or Guitar Hero could ever be for me. I know all the gamers out there are cursing me but, whatever.

Games like this really make me think in a way that the new ones don't. These were the originals and, for that, they will always be special. The new stuff is all great and, therefore, all pretty much the same. It's funny to think that our generation is the very first to have had computers practically from birth. We've never known a world without computer games and the internet. It's amazing to think about how far it's gone in a VERY short time span; in a quarter of a century we went from black screens with yellow (or green) text and manual DOS prompting for programs to DSL, online social networks, live streaming video, chat rooms, and, of course, BLOGS! Amazing stuff...perhaps, when I'm 80 years old, all you out there will just be able to read my mind...scary, eh? :)

So, all you techno-boomers out there, do you remember when you first rode The Oregon Trail?