History of MECC and Oregon Trail

Gammu writes: For the past thirty years, many children have been raised with a heavy diet MECC games like Oregon Trail, Odell Lake and Lemonade Stand. These products weren't developed by a major game developer. Rather, they were developed by the state of Minnesota for use in their schools. What began as an initiative to get Minnesota students ready for the micro-computer age turned into a multi-million dollar a year business whose products are still used in US schools even a decade after MECC was sold off to another developer. Read about the history of MECC (and especially Oregon Trail) at Silicon User.