BRAINTREE, MA — While performing a late spring cleaning last week, 48-Year Old Marouf Hamid discovered a set of 58 floppy disks containing an ancient, DOS-based Quran entitled “The Alim 1.0.” The set was untouched in the Hamid attic for over two decades with the family unaware of its significance.
“It’s amazing,” remarked Hamid. “How did people have the patience to shuffle through 58 disks?”
The family took the set to a local library computer lab for observation. Amazingly due to a lack of public funding, the library had a functioning IBM PS/1 personal computer with a 5.25″ floppy drive.
“The computer is all yellow and reeks of cigarette smoke,” stated a volunteer librarian. “They can use it if they want, I guess.”
After electrocuting three volunteers attempting to turn on the machine, the PC finally booted and a small crowd anxiously awaited while hearing the grinding noise from the floppy drive.
After approximately 15 minutes of “Loading…” messages, viewers were greeted by a colorful CGA splash screen touting the “World’s most useful Islamic software.”
“I guess the standard was pretty low back then,” stated Hamid.
According to experts, the Arabic text in the 1995 software appears to be identical to modern printings of the Quran.
“Unfortunately after trying to radiocarbon date a few of them, they’re now unreadable,” noted one expert. “Some disks appear to have copies of a game called ‘Oregon Trail’ written over the original software. We lost another one after the computer caught fire and burned down the library.”
