I emailed the person whose name is on the printout, and he replied and told me that he custom-built the prototype and wrote the code himself, but was hesitant to send me any of the missing files.
That is kind of surprising... Why would anyone care now? And, I have to admit, I'm more surprised that he actually still _has_ any of it... Was that Denker that you contacted?
I know George Klose personally built and programmed the Auto Race prototype (the first one, he was the one that essentially invented electronic handheld gaming with the creation of this. And he had a hard time convincing Mattel to go forward with it!) After Auto Race was successful, they wanted to do a Football game, and apparently Klose had less to do with that one (thus maybe it was someone else that build and programmed that one, although obviously Klose worked on it as his hand writing is on the paper)... Klose died many years ago, so I know you weren't talking to him.
I think Mark Lesser still has a hand-made prototype of Football... I have a picture of it somewhere, built closely to the size and button layout of the final game, but using huge buttons like they took them out of a computer keyboard from the day... I think this one was more after the programming and layout had been determined though, so this code in the patent was likely in an earlier period of the development...
And, I have to admit, I'm more surprised that he actually still _has_ any of it... Was that Denker that you contacted?
