That last point goes to the point that Dr. Mike Reddy makes … the current design of the “developer cart” is focused on the game-production model, where the focus is on commercializing the software, and game programmers were very willing to invest a lot of effort working within the limitations of the NES because in the mid-1980's it was so hard to reproduce cartridges. But we *want* it to be possible to “grow in place” … otherwise we are broadcasting, rather than planting seeds of development.

Further, with no experience programming the NES but some programming the C64 … if you want to port C64 and Apple II programs … *you need more RAM*. Given lots and lots of banked ROM, 32K RAM might be workable - 2K RAM just is nowhere near enough.

And the target ought to be to have the cartridge be field programmable *using the $10 computer itself*. Then, given the simplicity of the cartridge interface, anything that the $10 computer can do, a micro-controller chip being controlled from a PC can do.

So, start from the $10 system perspective. There is an 8K saved-ram memory map that comes out to the cartridge. The 6502 is happiest with memory mapped IO. So taking the top little bit of that address space for memory mapped I/O leaves a 4K “clean” address space at the bottom … that is 12 bits of the 19 bits of the 512K flash ROM, by writing into addresses from $6000~$6FFF.

7bits of an 8-bit latch can hold the data for address lines A12-A18, with the top bit low as write enable (this can be wired-or'ed with the R/W line with a diode for the /WE line of the chip). The top 5 bits of those 7 bits can be the address lines provided when ROM bank0 is accessed.

With a 32Kx8it Static RAM, a 4K (minus a few bytes at the very top for the I/O) can be provided with three bits of a second latch. That leaves five free bits, with is the ROM1 bank register.

There is a single 6502 bus chip with two 8-bit registers and enough additional serial processing power to drive an SPI bus fast enough for SD access, so basically this is a three-chip cart … the ROM, the RAM, the InterfaceAdapter chip … plus an SD socket.

Now, how to program the cart with a development system? You just need an interface to connect to the 8K RAM address space, so the cartridge programmer is a Famicom cartridge port with a microcontroller that does the programming … that of course does not have to be designed with an eye to being as frugal as possible, since the cartridge itself can be programmed in the field using a correctly set up SD card and the $10 computer itself.

http://www.Whymandesign.com would love to creatively enhance your work for example with the user interactivity of the service and the organisation structure http://www.Traidmark.org

http://www.WEBiversity.org is one example of how open source sofware can be used with that business model.

http://www.Playgroundgames.org are also looking for co producers who can benefit from using an international broadcast network to 1. draw communities together (age/gender/race…) and 2. create an archive of the ways cultures play before they are lost for ever.

Ed http://www.twitter.com/whymandesign

Along The Trail: What does the player encounter along the way?
http://web.wm.edu/amst/370/2005F/sp1/along_the_...

Also: a more recent discussion of the game was a guest talk that some of the original Oregon Trail developers did at the Nerdery this month:
http://blog.nerdery.com/2009/10/blazing-the-ore...

I'd be interested in what you think of the game, if you play through it again. It can be found at http://www.virtualapple.org/oregontraildisk.html

I appreciate your concern about Oregon Trail being used as an accurate
depiction of history (rather than as a simulation of particular
concepts of travel and trade). Two points to consider:

1. As far as I know, neither these games as such nor the list are
intended for *direct* distribution in a curricular sense. Instead, the
primary idea is to consider their designs as relevant *models* for new
original learning designs on constrained platforms. This makes no
particular claims about the merits of their content or form, or their
fitness to a particular educational purpose. On the one hand, a new
simulation about resource management and travel might be implemented
along similar lines in a fictional world with no historical claims
(e.g. Space Trail). On the other hand, a new game might use similar
modeling methods of resources and travel as Oregan Trail, but instead
focus on depicting an alternate dangerous traversal in history marked
by limited resources (e.g. the Trail of Tears, the Bataan Death March,
etc.)

2. I personally don't think that cultural objectivity is possible (or
desirable). There are contexts in which Donkey Kong could (and should)
offend, or in which the idea of a “bookworm” might be culturally
illegible and thus detract or distract from learning. Rather than than
one-size-fits-all learning games, my personal opinion is that the
mechanics and appearance, form and content of learning games should be
appropriate to the learning community — AND to the learning goals,
whether they be historical, logical, or other. That's why I believe it
is important to encourage broad access to as many new designs and
platforms as possible, and consider as many models from the past as
possible in fostering the design diversity of the future. I take your
point however that there is no reason to be needlessly offensive or
off-putting.

I would hope that we could keep our educational games as objective as possible, or at least fix serious flaws in presentation during the translation process.