Jordan Mechner promises to copy the code onto a Mac and then post it on his blog

Mar 30, 2012 17:41 GMT  ·  By

The creator of the original Prince of Persia video game has received a most endearing package in the mail from his father - a box containing three 3.5" disks on which the original game code is still stored magnetically.

The Prince of Persia platform game, originally developed by Jordan Mechner, was released in 1989 for the Apple II. The game represented a great leap forward in terms of animation.

Mechner, who is not only a game designer, but a screenwriter, author, and also a filmmaker, shares a very interesting story on his blog.

"My dad […] called from New York to tell me he was doing some spring cleaning and had shipped me a carton of old games and other stuff of mine he'd found in the back of a closet. The carton arrived yesterday. My jaw dropped when I saw what was inside,” he writes.

"No, I don't mean the stacks of Spanish Drosoft versions of POP and Karateka," he adds, pointing readers to the photo.

"I mean those three little plastic 3.5" disk boxes nestled among them, which appear to contain the original Apple 2 source doe of Prince of Persia that I've been searching for, off and on, for the past 10 years, pestering everyone from Doug Carlston to Danny Gorlin and everyone who ever worked at Broderbund, and finally gave up hope of ever finding. I knew it wasn't like me to throw stuff out!"

Mechner is now working with a “digital-archeology-minded friend” to try and port the data stored on the 3.5″ Apple ProDOS disks into “some kind of 21st-century-readable format” onto a MacBook Air.

“This is a crazy busy time (in a good way) with too many projects, so it might take a little while,” he says.

Mechner promises to update the blog with their progress, as well as share any new developments on his Twitter profile and Facebook feed. “…and I promise, as soon as we can extract something usable, I’ll post it here,” he concludes.