
The Oregon Trail Generation: Life Before and After Mainstream Tech - kposehn
http://socialmediaweek.org/blog/2015/04/oregon-trail-generation/
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dalke
Something is a bit off by that description.

I was born before 'the tail end of the 70s and the start of the 80s', so by
rights I am supposed to be "feeling slightly alienated from [computers] the
way Gen X did".

This is because "Gen X individuals were already fully-formed teens or young
adults when computers became mainstream."

But that's not true. The 1977 introduction of the Commodore PET, TRS-80 and
Apple II marks the start of the home computer generation. I had a computer
starting when I was 12, as did many others in the neighborhood. By 1982 and
the Commodore price wars, a home computer cost ~$200, which is under $500 in
2015 dollars. I remember reading magazines directed towards schoolchildren
which include BASIC programs to type in and run. So I'm pretty sure that
computer were "mainstream" before I even became a teen.

Also, Oregon Trail was first written in 1971. But the specific
characterization is:

> If you can distinctly recall the excitement of walking into your weekly
> computer lab session and seeing a room full of Apple 2Es displaying the
> start screen of Oregon Trail

The Apple //e came out in January 1983. By definition, anyone born in 1969
would be a teenager when it came out. But it would lose a period cachet to say
this was simply "Apple //" generation. And for some reason the sort of people
who write about their early involvement with computer prefer to talk about
Oregon Trail, even though "Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego" from the
same era made Brøderbund tens of millions per year.

Quoting from [http://www.filfre.net/2014/08/apple-carmen-sandiego-and-
the-...](http://www.filfre.net/2014/08/apple-carmen-sandiego-and-the-rise-of-
edutainment/) :

> Together Oregon and Carmen became the twin icons of 1980s edutainment, still
> today an inescapable shared memory for virtually everyone who darkened a
> grade or middle school door in the United States between about 1985 and
> 1995.

Carmen is more strongly tied to that specific generation than Oregon Trail,
no?

