Museum accepts collection of artifacts from Oregon Trail dev MECC

New York's Strong Museum of Play, that treasure trove of video game history, has now accepted a collection of software, photographs, documents and other artifacts documenting the life and death of the Minnesota Educational Computing Corporation.

That's big news because the MECC was a bit of an educational game powerhouse in its day, producing games like The Oregon Trail and Number Munchers, for classroom Apple IIs around the country.

Now, a group of former MECCers have joined together to donate over 150 pieces of MECC software, along with training manuals, videos and other MECC ephemera, to The Strong's International Center for the History of Electronic Games -- which, incidentally, inducted The Oregon Trail into its World Video Game Hall of Fame this year.

“MECC lasted more than two decades, evolving from state service to private company, and several generations of its talented staff members went on to found and populate other educational  technology companies,” stated MECC cofounder Dale LaFrenz in a press release announcing the donation. “In the process, MECC influenced the education of millions of children in the United States and elsewhere. MECC alumni everywhere are honored to work with The Strong to create this collection of products, documents, and artifacts that will ensure the curation of the MECC legacy.”

The Strong now plans to make the collection available to researchers, and will make some of it available to the public in future museum displays.