Why We Played Apple II Educational Games in School | Retro Mysteries 

I'm 40 and I too remember playing those same games games in the schools computer lab growing up.

Remember those grade school days well! When it was computer lab day we were so excited to play Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego, Math Baster and of course Organ Trail.

Lemonade Stand and Oregon Trail were my jam back in the early 80s.

I used to love these games when I was in grade school! Thanks for this video! Awesome job buddy!

Speaking of old school computers and games, does anybody remember Texas Instruments? They had some computers with games on them too. I liked playing Defenders on there.

Awesome history revision. We had the Apples at most schools in New Zealand also. And yes those games brought back fond memories . What about PRINT SHOP lol. I thought it was the bees knees ..lol

Ah ha! I found him! Mullet Kid at the 3:00 mark, on the wall! (But then again I thought he was there at 1:40, too!) Awesome video, definitely brought back some memories of being a kid in elementary school!

"Cost effective disk drive" It's strange hearing cost effective and apple.

Oh my gosh, I remember that frog eating words game, it was my favorite! This video brought back SOOOOO many memories.

I remember this for the first time in the 4th grade in computer class! Great memory! Number munchers and Oregon trail were definitely my favorite, my classmates would compete for the highest score and the teacher would give a little treat to the winner! Usually a few gummy bears or big pencils! What times...I'm getting old! Great video!👍

Oh man. These were some of my fondest memories in Elementary School, lol. Odell Lake, Oregon Trail, Jenny's Journeys and so on. Great job! :P

Thanks for the trip down memory lane!

I’m 39 years old and from the base of West Virginia’s eastern panhandle. In elementary school, I too made weekly trips to the computer lab and played Oregon Trail. As a fellow Appalachian gamer from the 80s, I appreciate your channel and all the work that goes into to making your videos.👍🏻🎮

I remember Oregon Trail, Numbers Munchers and this "Fish game" but i couldn't think of the name. ODELL LAKE! Thank you for helping me remember! Cool channel!

In the mid 80's, I remember playing Oregon Trail, Where in the World is Carmen SanDiego and Summer Games in our elementary school computer lab. Number Muncher kind of sounds familiar but it was a long time ago.

My aunt worked as a teacher when I was younger. She lived with us and had a IIGS and most of games we had were educational games. I loved them.

Wow dude this really blew my mind. It was soooo long ago and I remember these computer math games.. I just couldn’t remember the names. The only game I do remember playing in a school computer was JUNGLE HUNT but I doubt that was a math game. This one really made the memories rush back in thank you, love your channel.

Ahhhh the memories :D great vid Tyler!

Oregon Trail and Number Munchers on the Apple II in the early 1980s were my introduction to video gaming and i've been hooked ever since!!

The games I remember the most are Oregon Trail and Number Munchers. I'd love to revisit them sometime.

I hope I get to hear more stories like this on your channel

Wow brings back childhood memories!!!The Oregon Trail.....

Amazing video! I never knew all the back end details on this but was very interesting to watch. You spent a lot of time on this you can tell. I loved Oregon Trail growing up and number muncher. Mullet boy 3 min mark on the classroom wall.

I actually downloaded Oregon Trail on my phone at 30 years old after 22 years of not seeing or playing it and it was just as fun as I remembered!

love your videos, keep them coming. The game for me in school was, where in the world is carmen San Diego.

Cool video bro thanks! We had da same here bro across the country in WA. We had a cpu lab we went to 1x a week & we couldn't wait, we'd pair off & each pair had a cpu. Man I loved Oregon Trail & Math Blaster LOL!!! I used to have a newer version of Oregon Trail on my first smartphone but miss the original,

Same. We had a bunch of Apple II's in the computer lab. We learned programming with basic and logo's turtle graphics. We played Sierra's Mystery House (I still remember being frustrated at not being able to "get pitcher" because I couldn't spell it), Lemonade Stand and Oregon Trail. However, the most coveted games in the lab were Agent USA and Ghostbusters.

Yesss, back when Macintosh started to get more popular, I remember our teacher used to take us to the computer lab where we'd play SIM city. That game was SO addicting; especially when playing it on Macintoshes back then. Plus, it was a game where we could learn some of the realities that goes into building a city.

Lemonade Stand, The Oregon Trail, omg the memories. My favorite was learning BASIC and Logo. Middle school for me, I was born in 1972 so I think I'm a little older than you. I'm the same age as James Halliday was supposed to be in Ready Player One. It's amazing how close to that vision that Virtual Reality has become...

In 1986 Apple Computers landed in Mercer County Special Services School District schools here in NJ as this is where I would come face to face with computers for the first time ever when I was in Alfred Reed School, and would use Apple all the way through high school. I was introduced to Windows until 2003 when I took a computer class for those with special needs in Robbinsville, NJ. I am now more of a Windows person than a Mac person.

I always looked forward to summer break in the early 80s, when my teacher father got to bring home his classroom’s Apple 2..

Number and word munchers were my jam back in kindergarten. Oregon Trail too. A little later in Jr. High we used to play Wolfenstein 3-D during homeroom as well.

I still have a strong image of the weird room at the end of the farthest hall in my elementary school which had computers everywhere. Nobody knew what a “computer lab” was yet.

I do remember playing those games too when I was a kid. Both in school and at home. I was born and raised on Apple 2 and BASIC programming language. Ah the memories.

Oh hell yeah, I not only have fund memories of the apple 2 and played the games, but I have became a programmer and taught my classmates how to code at 5th grade. We saved a few games on a floppy we've created during that year. I've made an ever lasting impression on my teacher how ahead I was in class. Now that I think about it, we left those brand new games for kids behind us in that classroom. I wonder if she talked about us about them.

Word munchers and the Oregon Trail are the games I remember. Thanks for helping me remember and relive my childhood GThree

Another great video, I remember having to stiff arm kids to get on the computer when I was a kid. Don't remember exactly if it was an apple 2 but Oregon trail was definitely lit , probably only beat it like 4 times outta 4000 though lol

As a fellow WV boy, I remember exactly what you are talking about, it was the same in my school, Flinn Elementary and even into my middle school days at Sissonville Middle School.

Yep, in the early 90s I was always excited to go to the computer lab to play Carmen Sandiego, Number Munchers and Oregon Trail...but my favorite game, which the name escapes me, was a math-based two player artillery game where you had to get the correct angle to take out your enemy before s/he took you out.

Yep we had Apple 2 computers at my elementary school as well, but due to our administrators being cheap they were equipped with spinach green monochrome displays. I remember playing hangman and some wheel word game as well

Yep I will never forget playing Oregon Trail number munchers all the time in school I always had a blast playing them and thank you for putting this video out because it made me go down memory lane playing these wonderful games I just wish that they can put out a even better updated game for these old school games TY, Tattoo Johnny

Man you brought back memories

In the 3rd grade I turned in my work as quickly as I could to play word/ number munchers and math blaster. Great motivation and practice in one.

Even though these games are old I used to play them back in school in this other class which I forgot this was back in the 90s when I was around six or seven years old. Good times.

I think we started at my school when i was in 2nd grade in 92. We had the Macintosh computers. Thats where the newer version of Oregon trail came out.

I bought and refurbished an apple IIE because of my experience in Elementary school in Trenton Michigan. I still try and look for all the old software trying to relive the past.

Thank you so much for Odell lake! I remembered that game but couldn't remember the name for the life of me

Yes, I was born in '76, and we had the Apple II/IIe computers in a lab. It was definitely my favourite part of school. The game I remember most was Math Blaster.

Oh you're not alone at all my friend.I have so many fond memories of playing Amazon, Karateka, and Oregon Trail in the computer lab at my middle school waaaaaaaaay back in 1986-87.Except we didn't have color graphics, they were monochrome green on black, and our computers were specifically Apple 2E's.I salute you for this video.Cheers! P.S. Do you or anyone else remember a title called, "Alfredos amazing adventures" or something with Alfredo in the title? They weren't games as you couldn't control them, but they were entertaining.They showed a stick figure running through various screens, jumping over things, etc.

Odell Lake was awesome, and I never understood why it wasn’t ported to other platforms or even heard from again. Now I do.

Oregon Trail all day loved playing that in school!

Mannnnn OMG😃Gettin the announcement from the teacher that we're heading to the cpu room was the most epic ish ever😃

Oregon Trail, Number/ Word Munchers, and Where in the World/USA is Carmen SanDiego were my go-to games in elementary school.

Southern WV is awesome...Me and the wife went last April to Gilbert for some ATV fun. Would love to go back sometime soon.

Karateka and Flight Simulator are the games we played in school. Good times in Pineville, WV.

my elementary school still had apple 2s until the late 90s I bought one for 10 dollars with a box of games. we had the mecc games in canada too. My favorite was probably spellevator but odell lake was awesome too.

I know I was using it when I was younger. I think I was much more into Number Munchers more than any other game. Those later colorful computers were great too! It had Nanosaur!

Yup, also grew up using apple II at our school with all those same games. Miss those days. Plot twist they were 10 years outdated by this time!! By middle school the school just got a bunch of imac g3 and a network DSL connection (I'm sure it was at least 8 years before those computers got replaced as well.) Glad at home we had finally upgraded to PC like a year after windows98 launched. Leaned back then that I'd rather keep up to date on cheaper PC that was easy to upgrade ram/hard-drive etc, then pay more for a mac and because of the high price be stuck with it for 8+ years and they were very hard to open up to upgrade without going to a tech.

We were doing this in Canada too. It was 1990 and we were on the Apple 2. I was already thinking the real world was all about DOS and the PC. School is way behind

oh man you have no idea! As a kid the grade school I went to had a whole computer lab of Apple IIs so I definitely play my fair share of the MECC educational games back in the day. Not to mention learning a little bit of the BASIC programming as well! I do also remember graduating to the IIGS and later the early Macintoshes and learning how to use the mouse, too!

I couldn't wait to go hunting in Oregon trail. Those were the days. I'm also a little sad because I never caught Carmen San Diego.

Our dad has a lot of retro games we play, but he doesn't really have any Apple stuff. Nice to see what there is for that platform.

I got to play lots of games in my 4th grade extended learning class. I remember a game about traveling to the north pole I can never find. Also went to an after school computer class at some point. Playing on the IIe I think. Then my parents got the IIc. I was a lucky kid. Ghostbusters on the apple was a favorite, good version.

Nice King Fu shirt, and great video. 👊

Number munchers was my shit,, cool video bro, going to the computer lab every week was a treat i looked forward to

One particular Apple II game we were all addicted to in sixth grade was “Tag.” Nowadays I can’t find it anywhere.

Does anyone remember the game or program where you connected dots to make stars? Lol.. that was my fav. I also totally forgot about the frog game, number munchers and the lake game until I saw this video..lol 😆

I remember Oregon Trail. My favorites were the Carmen Sandiego games.

I remember the Apple II. Played Oregon Trail (buy a lot of ox) and other games. I still stick with a MACBook for personal use. I remember Number Muncher on the old school Apple II's in Kindergarten. Good times! You can still play theses games at

You used to live in WV? Cool! I used to live in the Eastern Panhandle, in Martinsburg. We had lots of Apple IIs in our school.

crossing the forde was always the most hectic part of Oregon Trail. Do you have a higher chance of dying from dysentery or from dissing Terry? The World may never know!

I went to a school that did basic programming. I still have my Apple IIe floppy with early code I wrote. I'd love to see what I created at age 11-12 but I can't justify buying an Apple IIe just for that. My favorite educational games were Sticky Bear and Carmen Sandiego. I also had a lot of fun with Montezumas Revenge, Moon Patrol, Amazon, and Sherwood Forest.

I love mullet boy! I’ve been hiding Glover in videos for a long time (a continuation from the podcast days) but I’ve never even mentioned it. Maybe I should. Lol.

I too had very similar memories from school back in those days, I won't touch a apple now days with a 10 foot pole but they had their hay day....

Weirdly enough at the local Walmart today, I saw a handheld version of the Apple II version of Oregon Trail. So there is that.

I've your reviews. I too loved me some apple 2 games. Odell lake especially.

Our computer lab was a joke we had keyboards hooked up to nothing and we had to practice typing on them. Every 30th class we got to rotate on the apple IIe and actually use a computer.

I've been looking for an Apple IIc typing program that we used in Elementary school for years and can find no info on it. It was called "Paw's Party" At the end of each lesson there would a little game where you typed lines to uncover a picture of a character. The closest I can find is what looks like an older version called "Microtype The Wonderful World of Paws". It was in the early 90s when we used it. I doubt we were the only school who was using Paw's Party to learn typing so I find it odd that there seems to be zero information about it online.

If not the apple 2 we all have memories with those translucent 90s wonders and imac

To this day The Oregon Trail is on of my favorite games ever. Many Tuesday's after lunch we played this game in my grade school. Although I have an android phone but I give Apple credit. Android would not be what it is without Apple's ios. Mp3 rise to the streaming market. Even touch screens. All Apple's gifts to the world.

Since you know all of THESE games, perhaps you know 1 more which I can't find anywhere but definitely played in school. It's probably a CGA game I think, definitely a castle/dungeon sort of game, you start by choosing either a wizard or a knight as your character and either a sword or a wand as your weapon. Then you are placed on a black screen (the dungeon) which is a 2D overhead/ceiling view and have to randomly move the mouse/trackball around as though you're stumbling in the dark until a piece of the maze is revealed. You keep randomly trying to move and uncover more maze until you stumble upon a battle, which switches you over to a picture of a dragon or troll or some sort of adversary who poses a (math??) puzzle question to you. If you answer correctly your character will destroy the enemy with his weapon and I think earn some gold or something. Then you go back to the map screen and try to reveal more map. That's all I remember about the game but for the life of me I can't find it because I don't know its name. Please help!

@GenerationGapGaming I'm 46 here and WOW THANKS for this absolutely AMAZING piece that brings back Sooo many great memories!!! I mean I liked CPU class with the apple IIe so much so that it almost beat out going to gym for me, almost lol 😂‼️ OK, with that said I HAVE to chuck up the craziest 99.99 yard Hail Mary ever!!!!!! 🤞🙏🤞🙏🤞🙏🤞🙏🤞🙏🤞🙏🤞 I'm hoping that you @GenerationGapGaming or anybody else for that matter have even the slightest amount of info on what's debatedly the HolyGrail of learning games!! I need your help more than Leia needed the help of Obi-Wan!! I'm talking about the game that I think is titled Hot Dog Stand: Survival Math Skills and was made by Sunburst Communications in the mid to late 80's!! I've seen the other two updated versions, but no dice on the original!!!

My School had them too. X3 Oregon Trail was the first computer game I ever played, and it was on an Apple II. Our school cheaped out and went with the monochrome monitors. You know, the ones that were so green, the Game Boy's screen would be like "That's too much green, yo!" I honestly didn't know that the Apple II could display color, until years later.

Oregon trail, odell down under , and number munchers slapped like ike turner when i was younger

I feel very blessed to have the parents I had, the got my brother and me a Texas Instruments TI-99/4A. Plus at school the computer lab had 8 Apple computers that we made basic programming stuff. Tbh, what killed my love for basic programming as a kid was getting a NES. Playing Zelda, Metroid, and Super Mario Brothers was way funnier than typing in basic for hours and hours. Wish I had stuck with it.

Cool video man. I remember most of these games. Lab time in school was a pretty special thing for us. Thanks for posting. There is another game and I can't remember the name of it, but you had control of a car/spaceship and it was kind of like a educational platformer.?.? if you can think of the name of it, that would be awesome. Take care G3

When you are trapped in school this was the best, most fun thing to do!!!!

Does anyone remember a game similar to “mystery house” but you were looking for a buried treasure or something around a mansion or house? They made us play it in school in the computer lab in the early 90s. It’s hard to look for because I remember so little from the game except that I was similar to mystery house as far as graphics go...

We had to beat a few levels of math muncher first and then go to play Oregon trail. Ngl, math muncher made me so efficient at mental math lol. Such good times back then :)))

Another game I regularly tried to play during my computer time was called Legacy of the Ancients.

Man I remember Number Munchers and, of course, Oregon Trail!

A school fire wiped out the leagues of Apple 2 computers in our computer lab, and the only surviving stuff was Commodore 64 manuals and guide books. So I developed all my initial coding skills on a C64. But I played some Apple 2 games, mostly Hard Hat Mack and Super Bunny. The computer lab upgraded to some 386 machines so all our games were on DOS afterwards. Billy the Kid, Oregon Trail, and so on. Oh and VGA Sharks.

love playing wheel of fortune number and word munchers they were fun yeah your right it always a battle of who gets the computer it was getting the teachers the real stress test lol hard time memories man i enjoyed it wish i was a kid again

Number munchers, Odell Lake, and Oregon Trail were my favorites.

I remember the teachers having troubles getting them started and were too afraid to try anything to get them going for fear of breaking them. Computers were new at the time so it isn’t one of those the kids knew how to do it moments. Just a lot of disappointment on a few occasions. Getting geared up for some lemonade stand, only to find out they couldn’t get the darn thing going 🙁

I loved Oregon Trail on the school's Macs but they also started my lifelong dislike for the platform. Clicking through an onscreen menu to eject the disk was just the worst. To this day my fondest memory of the Apple computer was the day that I discovered a sound clip from Howard Stern's Private Parts on one of the Macs. I held down the key to play the clip long enough to fill the buffer. It played on repeat for a considerable time after I had left the room.

Some schools had them longer than others, I remember playing on my school's around 95

From the family guy episode “Corner Three!!”. I have a friend, who’s now a detective, still is bitter over Tecmo. Hope I don’t get arrested!😂

The days of early PC games have stuck with me decades later. Having these available for educational purposes was the best part of school! I even remember vividly the smell of those floppy disks! 😆 Good times!

Two other games worth a mention is Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego and Hitchhikers guide 😃