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BEACON TRANSCRIPT – Remember the golden age of computers? We are of course referring to the 80s and the 90s, the era of immortal titles, such as Prince of Persia or Monkey Island. Well, this period wasn’t only about games and great software, but about viruses as well. We are invited to visit the Internet’s largest virus archive, hosted by Archive.org.

As stated, the 80s and the 90s, in terms of computers, were not entirely about great game titles or about wacky new software, because even those pesky viruses had the capability of adding some panache to the whole ensemble.

Unlike their modern counterparts, old computer viruses were not so destructive. Well, maybe there were a few viruses that could take your computer out of commission, but they were very rare. Instead, most computer viruses would have interrupted your working routine with an annoying text message and a repetitive tune blasting out of your computer’s internal speakers.

A fine example that illustrates just how old school viruses worked is the Walker.com virus. You’re probably wondering what happened when your computer got infected with this virus. Nothing in particular. Everything seemed to be in order apart from a shady pixelated old man who took a stroll across your monitor from time to time.

Or if we are talking about frustrating computer viruses, we should also mention techno.com. Once your computer got infected with this little buggers, all your cmd text lines were immediately replaced by the word “techno”. As this happened, your computer would play a most annoying and repetitive tune via the internal speakers. The only thing you could have done was to force shut down your computer and hope that you can find an antivirus good enough to blast the virus into oblivion.

To view more examples of old-school viruses, please visit the Internet’s largest virus archive, hosted by Archive.org. Look under the Malware Museum section and browse away.

All the viruses have been stripped of malware code, so they will pose no danger to your computer. The think-tank behind this unusual concept is Mikko Hypponen, an online security expert. Hypponen is also the curator of this highly unusual museum.

If you are interested in visiting the online museum, here are a few thing to keep in mind. All the content available on the page can be downloaded for free. However, in order to view it, you will need to install DOSBox, an MS-DOS emulator. Or you can simply hit the play button under each title and use the integrated DOSBox player.

Photo credits:www.wikipedia.org