1993
Products
• 92–93 Apple II Shipment: Fish School, Grammar Gobble, Grammar Madness, Moving Museum, Windy City, Woolly’s Garden, Exploring Chaos, History Makers, Picture a Story, Rocket Factory (bilingual–Spanish and English!), Take a Chance!, Wonderland Puzzles, Dr. Livingstone, I Presume?, Freedom!, USA Geograph.
• February: Freedom! has been discontinued and letters, both positive and negative, continue to come in.
• New releases: Oregon Trail Windows disk and CD and BodyScope for Mac; The Amazon Trail, Arizona Mix, Canada Geograph II, CryptoQuest, DinoPark Tycoon, Dog Sled Ambassadors, MacStat, My Own Stories, Odell Down Under (for Mac and Windows), Storybook Weaver, Treasures for Sale, and USA Geograph II.
• Among the discontinued titles: Grade Manager, Friendly Computer, Market Place, and Zoyon Patrol.
Platforms
• October: Apple starts shipping all new Macs with built-in 2x CD-ROM drives.
• Windows products outsell DOS products for first time according to first quarter 1993 SPA figures.
• 75% of computers found in K–8 member districts are still Apple II series.
Conference
• MECC ‘93 “A Cooperative Adventure To Benefit Our Kids!” at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. Free product: The Oregon Trail (CD-ROM). Co-Sponsors: NAESP (National Association of Elementary School Principals) and NASSP (National Association of Secondary School Principals). Keynote Speaker: George McKenna III (Superintendent of Inglewood Unified School District–Inglewood, CA). Monday Night Dance: All-School Dance with music from the ’40s through ’90s.
News
• A video studio has been added to the Multimedia Room on 2nd floor, in the former Xerox room.
• May 12: Taco-Taco Day, the First Annual taco lunch in Muncher Hall.
• June 29: MECCTECH Premiere Technical Support Rollout.
• July 14: MECC celebrated its 20th Birthday in Muncher Hall with cake and ice cream.
• Compton’s New Media purchased by The Tribune Company.
• Global Constructs, MECC’s Multicultural Design Considerations, are developed and shared with the Development Division, Sales, and Marketing.
• MECC is listed in October 1993 issue of Corporate Report Minnesota as one of the state’s top high-tech companies. MECC is ranked 94th based on revenue.
1994
Products
• New Mac/Win products: MathKeys, Troggle Trouble Math, Tesselmania!, Oregon Trail II, and The Yukon Trail.
• New Apple products: Caravans to Timbuktu, Pet Shop, Number Jumpers, Rescue in the Outback, Science Giants, Sum Stories, and Word Builder.
Platforms
• January 3: MECC C++ Programming Standards published.
• CD-ROM development gets started.
Conference
• MECC ‘94 “The Great Technology Get-together ’94” at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, sponsored by MECC and TIES. Keynote Speaker: Therese Crane (V.P. and General Manager of Apple’s K–Grade 12 Education Division).
News
• MECC goes public. January 11: MECC files IPO (initial public offering) with the SEC. March: MEKK stock is first traded on Nasdaq. Dec. 6: MECC stock now trades under the symbol MECC.
• April 4: MECC articulates a 5-year vision statement and members of each division share insights on how to contribute to the vision over the next 5 years. (Oh, well.)
• April 8: Taco-Taco Day, the third taco lunch in Muncher Hall.
• November 23: All Development Staff were invited to boldly go see the new movie “Star Trek Generations.”
1995
Products
• Apple II series: Woolly’s Birthday, Get Well, Woolly!, Quilting Bee, Flip-Flop, and Move Over, Mother Goose!
• Mac/Win products: more MathKeys products, Tesselmania! Deluxe, MayaQuest, and Opening Night.
Platforms
• The Corvus network, which supported Apple II series development, is dismantled.
News
• February 25: 1st Annual (and only!) Trailheads Jamboree at the Mall of America, featuring the national premiere of Oregon Trail II and a the unforgettable presence of Cody the Buffalo.
• July 12: Taco-Taco Day, the fourth taco lunch in Muncher Hall.
• Oct. 30: Merger agreement between MECC and SoftKey. Oct. 31: Wall Street Journal runs an article on SoftKey’s purchasing of MECC (stock deal worth $370 million) and TLC (cash bid of $606 million).
1996
Products
• Mac/Win: more MathKeys, Big Science Ideas: Systems, Science in Your Ear, The Art Lesson, Spellevator Plus, Spelling ToolKit Plus, Word Munchers Deluxe, Amazon Trail II, and Explore Yellowstone.
• MECC Interactive Explorer series features Oregon Trail Online and MayaQuest, both on the Internet.
News
• March 29: SoftKey consolidates Technical Support in Knoxville, TN. At first, only Fremont and Marietta, GA are affected; MECC Tech Support gets “consolidated” to Knoxville in the May-July time period.
• March 31st marks the end of MECC’s first year as a publicly-held company. To celebrate, some employees attended a pig roast at the Diamond T Ranch for the performance of “Let’s Kill the Boss” at the Mystery Cafe.
• May: MECC is sold to SoftKey; purchase of MECC stock valued at $350,000,000. MECC marks “merger” in a mock marriage of The Muncher to Mr. Sports Illustrated 1996.
• May 31 (from Star Tribune p. D3): “New owner SoftKey chops 50 jobs at Brooklyn Center software maker.”
• October 24: Corporate name changed to The Learning Company, Inc.