That only goes as far back as to version 1.8 from 2015. Electrum's GitHub releases date back to 0.56 from 2012 (
https://github.com/spesmilo/electrum/tags?after=0.57a). I am not sure if it's possible to find versions of the software that are older than that. I think anything older than 3.3.4 can't connect to servers anyway.
It seems to me that the seed phrase perhaps isn't a BIP39 but a prior version of electrum's seed phrase.
I think Electrum started using versioning in seed phrases since version 2.0
[1]. So, if this is correct, then OP perhaps owns a seed phrase that was produced without the current versioning system, so OP
must try and find the old code to make it work. Am I right?
[1]
https://electrum.readthedocs.io/en/latest/seedphrase.htmlTook much head banging into walls, but I think we might be onto something here. Thanx to you and the others for giving me good council and now we have a whole new point of view. I'd rather have the facts albeit more difficult.