Oregon Trail--A Blast from the Past!

When I was a kid in school, I loooooved to play Oregon Trail. Does anyone remember it? The roleplay game where you are the leader of your pioneer family trying to travel from Independence, Missouri, west to Oregon. You have to make decisions along the way, like the pace of travel, ration sizes for the family, stopping to rest, when to hunt for food, trading, floating or fording across rivers, etc. It's fun AND clean. There is NOTHING in this game I'd have qualms about letting any child play it.

Anyway, I was wanting to play it and I figured out how to download it FOR FREE. It's now on my computer and I can play anytime I want. :D Thought I'd share how to do it in case anybody else wanted to play.First, go to http://classicgaming.gamespy.com/View.php?view=GameMuseum.Detail&id=266and follow these instructions to a tee. Careful. Don't read all the "comments" on this page. There are some wordy dirds in there. I stopped reading once I got to the instructions on how to do it. I've pasted them below. Let me know if you need help.

First download the file otrail.zip by clicking on [Download the: Oregon Trail Apple II Disk Image] and save it somewhere on your computer. Next, extract the contents of the zip folder. In XP you can do this by right-clicking on the zip folder icon and selecting "extract all". Note the location to which you extract the files, you will need to know later on!Next download the program AppleWin, the Apple //e Emulator for Windows from Link This file also arrives as a zip, extract the zip contents as before, then open the folder you've just extracted. Double-click on the Apple icon named "Applewin" (note there is also a help file named "APPLEWIN" which is not the same thing), the program should start up.On the right side of the Applewin window there is a column of icons. Click on the disk drive icon labelled "1-Master". At this point you should get another window titled "Select Disk Image for Drive 1". Using the "Look in" drop down menu navigate to the folder where you extracted the contents of the otrail.zip file. There should be two files in the folder, Otrail1 and Otrail2. Select Otrail1 and click the "open" button. Repeat this procedure for the disk drive icon numbered "2" and select the file Otrail2 for this drive.At this point you are ready to play! Just click on the Apple icon, the one near the top right under the help icon, and the game should load.Tip: during game play, when you are prompted to switch disks, if you have followed all the above instructions all you have to do is click on the disk drive icon labelled "12"; this will move the disk image not being used to the master drive, then you can hit the space bar to continue playing.Tip:The Applewin window is not scalable, so it may appear very small on your screen depending on your screen resolution. If this is the case, prior to starting the Applewin program, right click on the program icon then select "Properties". Navigate to the "Compatibility" tab, select the box next to "Run in 640 x 480 screen resolution", then hit "apply", then hit "ok". Now when you start Applewin it should appear much larger. Your screen resolution will be returned to normal when you close Applewin.

It's easier than it sounds, really. HAVE FUN! :D