Internet Archive's Malware Museum is a new compilation of old-school viruses that have hit personal computers over the decades including desktops/laptops running Microsoft DOS. Those bugs sometimes corrupted files on hard drives or floppy disks, caused damage to the PC's system, or were sometimes just annoying. However, the viruses of the 1980s and 1990s were done with style in the messages they left their victims or even the bugs' names.
The in-browser DOS simulator is a safe way to view some of the highlights from past decades. Internet Archive's archivist and software curator Jason Scott, and F-Secure's chief research officer Mikko Hypponen first made the collection.
Malware Museum now has 65 examples of malicious software, according to PCWorld. Most of them are viruses.
The Ambulance shows an ASCII medical truck roll across the computer screen with sound. It then crashes into a brick wall.
Meanwhile, the Frodo virus is named after a character in the "Lord of the Rings" book series. Every September 22 (the birthdate of main character Bilbo Baggins) the message "FRODO LIVES" appears on the display and could also corrupt data files.
There is no danger of visitors' desktops or mobile devices being infected. All dangerous coding has been removed to leave the DOS-era computer graphics with a bit of charm, according to Engadget.
During the days of MS DOS viruses were more interesting than dangerous. The Next Web observes that some of the malware even seems like works of art after they were made safe for computer history fans.
However, the viruses seemed much more dangerous when they were launched. Anti-virus software did not exist so malware often required desktop and laptop owners to reinstall MS DOS, according to The Next Web.
PCWorld points out that more details could be added later to the Malware Museum including what the viruses were. Their effect on the computing world would also be interesting info.
The all-time first computer virus was named Erik Cloner. In 1982 a high school student wrote the software to infect Apple II computers and floppy discs.
When the old-school Apple computer booted from a virus-infected floppy disk it hid in the computer's memory. Clean discs were also infected after the user typed in the command "catalog" to show a list of files.
Here's the Ambulance virus: