Do they publish any sort of index? I really hope you manage to find what you’re looking for, as it sounds fascinating and I’d like to take a bash at re-implementing it.
I look at the emulators and program archives. I find a lot of software that was sold, is missing from the earlt 80’s and before, and I haven’t found a site that has stored the type in programs from magazines. I know a lot is missing because I’ve used computers and programed them since 1978. Looking up the magazine is the way to go if you want this game.
The (1990s) graphical adventure Obsidian had a puzzle that was very similar (and may have been inspired by it). The important difference is that there was only one robot. It only had 7 programming spots, which wasn’t enough to do what you needed it to do. However, the programming interface was not on the robot, but on a wall of a room that the robot could enter. To solve the puzzle, you had to send the robot into the room, so that it could modify its own code and continue. (In-game, the AI that was trying to take over the world was using this to teach you how it became self-aware.)
I know that Scott Kim did many of the puzzles in Oblivion. I used to have the strategy guide which talked about who designed what; I’m not sure if that was one of his or not, but you could try asking him.
I won a t-shirt for the Obsidian contest. Sent in the contest answer maybe as little as an hour before the contest ended.
Having an offer like that on the table is way too good to pass up. I’m going to track this thing down if it kills me.
Since you say it appeared around 1980 (and I remember it myself from around that time), it would have been in one of Martin Gardner’s Mathematical Games columns, which are all available on this CD. It isn’t cheap, but it’s worth the price for any old fans or current fans of math or puzzles.