The Oregon Trail
From TeeVeePedia, the Internet TV Encyclopedia.
Production
In 1976, using the guts of an Apple I computer and plenty of venture capital, Jobs created the outline for a game based on the California Gold Rush of 1848. Seeing the similarity of the game to the 1960s show Wagon Train and wanting to reach a large audience, Jobs quickly stole adapted an early idea of Philo T. Farnsworth's and set about trying to make the game interactive over then-primitive television sets. By late 1976 Jobs had succeeded, in the process creating the world's first Apple II computer.
Using the connections that Disney had made at the major networks, Jobs pitched the idea to the (then) 3 major television networks. NBC agreed to the idea, provided that the game not mention California or the Gold Rush (for legal reasons). The name was changed to The Oregon Trail and work commenced on the project. While Jobs worked on programming, Disney worked on the interface system and George Lucas was brought in to work on the graphics. By the late summer of 1977, the game was completed. NBC added the game to the 1977 schedule as a beta test.
Cancellation
From the start The Oregon Trail ran into problems. While viewers praised the graphics, they complained that the game had too steep of a learning curve and that traveling parties tended to die within the first few hundred miles. The $2638 price tag (about the same price as a new AMC Pacer) for the interface was also criticized. The main problem was that the show was up against Charlie's Angels on ABC, which virtually guaranteed that the target audience wasn't going to notice it. The Oregon Trail died a quick and merciful death after only six broadcasts.
A few interface units survived into the 1990s, but the Y2K bug wiped out all 4K of memory, making the devices useless except as doorstops.
