"How The West Was One + Three x Four" is a 1987 educational game developed by Bonnie Seiler and Pat Sine, and published by Sunburst Communications. It requires a 48K Apple ][+ or later. Against a human or computer opponent, players strategically create and answer math equations which move them towards the goal. This version is based on the original game created by Seiler for the PLATO system at the University of Illinois.  Click the screenshot to run it in your browser.

• Download How The West Was One + Three x Four (contains .woz file)

• Download How The West Was One + Three x Four extras.zip (contains .a2r flux file, .png screenshots)

Documentation and Information:

• Information on price, publisher and requirements in the 1990 Apple Software Information Directory by Menu

• How The West Was One + Three x Four on MobyGames

Historical Documents and Articles:

• Description of how the game was used alongside other educational software in an educational computing course “Content Based Technology: Learning By Modeling” by Farragher, Francis-Pelton and Riecken in the Technology and Teacher Education Annual, 1997

• Game included (with description) in a list of educational programs available to Gifted and Talented program teachers in 1990-1991 Elementary and Secondary Education Act report for the Austin Independent School District

• Softkey/crack instructions for the game by Joseph Karwoski in Computist issue 73, 1990

• Description of game, including images of alternate versions, in Designing Multimedia Environments for Children (Borrowable, 1996) by Druin and Solomon.

• Referenced as an example of giving a “meaningful context” to educational material in Montessori: The Science Behind the Genius by Angeline Stoll Lillard (Borrowable, 2007) 

Some alternate versions of the program, bootable at the Internet Archive:

• 4am crack

Description, from Mobygames:

How the West was One + Three x Four is a board game in the vein of Chutes and Ladders with an educational twist. Instead of throwing dice players get a random selection of 3 numbers and must use them all in a mathematical equation to determine how many spaces they advance on the board. When a player lands on the same place as another that player is bumped back to the beginning. There are also some shortcuts on the track, which ensure the highest possible calculation isn't necessarily the best move. The Apple II version allows for two difficulty settings for the computer.