Periodically in the past year, Abdulfattah 'John' Jandali would shoot off an email to Steve Jobs, the son he never met. They were simple notes: 'Happy Birthday' or 'I hope your health is improving.'

It's unclear if Mr. Jobs ever wrote back. A person close to Mr. Jobs's family said, no, he didn't, while Mr. Jandali said he did receive two short replies.

The last one arrived six weeks before Mr. Jobs's death, Mr. Jandali said, and said simply, 'Thank you.'

For Mr. Jandali, aside from the iPhone 4 he carries, his story of the emails is pretty much all he has of a son who co-founded Apple Inc. and grew into one of the world's most famous businessmen.

Mr. Jandali, 80 years old and general manager of the Boomtown casino in the barren hills outside Reno, Nev., presides over a staff of around 450 casino workers and is praised by his colleagues for his quiet leadership style and a marketing savvy. Walking the floor on Friday, he was stopped by an employee who thanked him for reinstalling $5 dollar slot machines. Mr. Jandali shook his hand, then sat down at the casino's Chinese noodle joint to eat the salmon special, as he does many days.

'I can't take credit for my children's success,' said Mr. Jandali, who is also the father of the celebratednovelist Mona Simpson. Mr. Jobs was put up for adoption as a baby. Mr. Jandali said he had almost no contact with him and also has a strained relationship with Ms. Simpson.

Mr. Jandali's close friends say the estrangement with his children has been a source of great sadness over the years. He kept the fact of his famous offspring private from even those closest to him for fear of being perceived as someone seeking to ride their coattails.

'To me it felt like his whole life this (estrangement) is something he regretted and he wished he made different decisions or wished there was a different result,' said Keith Henson, a general manager of L'Auberge Lake Charles, a casino in Louisiana. Mr. Henson said he found out only three years ago that Mr. Jandali had fathered Mr. Jobs even though Mr. Henson was mentored by Mr. Jandali at Boomtown and was the best man at his third wedding.

The recent decline in Mr. Jobs's health attracted notice to Mr. Jandali, which he said he finds uncomfortable. Mr. Jandali agreed to be interviewed at the casino's noodle restaurant, only after saying he didn't think his story was interesting enough to warrant the attention.

With crinkled eyes and white hair surrounding a balding head, Mr. Jandali has a physicalresemblance to Mr. Jobs. A side table in his office prominently features a framed publicity shot of Ms. Simpson that Mr. Jandali said he downloaded from the Internet.

He said he learned of Mr. Jobs's death on Wednesday at the office, when a stranger called to offer condolences. He quickly hung up the phone.

'It was not a shock,' Mr. Jandali said. 'Basically all you feel is sadness.'

Mr. Jandali only learned around 2005 that Mr. Jobs was his biological son. He doesn't remember how he heard, but he said the news was 'a major shock.'

After that, Mr. Jandali began watching online videos of Mr. Jobs's famous keynote speeches launching Apple products. He emailed a few times in the past year after becoming aware of Mr. Jobs's failing health.

'I don't know why I emailed,' Mr. Jandali said. 'I guess because I felt bad when I heard about the health situation. He had his life and I had my life, and we were not in contact. If I talked to him, I don't know what I would have said to him.'

After hearing of Mr. Jobs's death Mr. Jandali called Ms. Simpson, who he said didn't respond. He stared at pictures that were saturating news web sites online of Mr. Jobs in his 20s and 30s.

'That was exactly how I looked,' he said.

Mr. Jandali said he also read the speech last week that Mr. Jobs gave at Stanford University in 2005 in which the Apple chief reflected on life and death and told the story of his adoption. 'My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student