Haha I remember the days of downloading random EXEs off the internet and running them to see what they do (also the days of CD-rom drives).
My auntie somehow managed to get a virus that played Für Elise through the motherboard speaker and never stopped so long as the thing was on. I don’t think they ever solved it, in the end they just got a new PC.
Motherboards have speakers?
Are you trying to make me feel old?
Back in my day, that used to be the only way a computer could produce sound. Later on you could purchase a specialized sound card that would take up a slot in your motherboard.
I thought I was the cool kid when I got my SoundBlaster 16!
Damn, I feel old now…
Bleepers
Beep beep
386 era machines often had a 4 inch speaker in the front panel. It couldn’t do much. Some main boards still come with headers for a speaker, some even come with an electret beeper
A good number do, but you won’t hear anything during normal operation. If your vomputer has ever beeped at you when you try to turn it on at 0% battery, accessed the bios, etc., there’s a good chance that was the motherboard speaker.
Slightly related, it is really annoying you cant stop the boot speaker on the PS4 without voiding your warranty and ripping the speaker out
I remember there was a virus that had a tiny cat on the screen and it would chase your mouse cursor. Once it catches your mouse cursor, the computer would crash. It was freaking awesome.
That’s based on a harmless Unix game that you can install forks of which on modern day Linux as well, by the way
i have a vencord extension that does that
What’s the name of the game?
The original was just neko. It probably hasn’t been maintained in forever though.
There is a webneko that you can embed on your website:
https://webneko.net/
It’s just Linux. It chases you and your mouse throughout the fediverse, and when it catches you and you install it, it crashes your computer because the mouse drivers are written by a 12 year old with undiagnosed ADHD.
I have had far more driver issues on windows on linux things just work lol
Does windows still reinstall drivers for some hardware when you plug them in, regardless of whether you installed them previously?
I think i have had that happen with maybe usbs but idk about anything else
I’ve seen 12 year old adhd or autistic kid writing better software than most tech companies
Reminds me of Rensenware.
What’s it called? I wanna see this
I don’t remember what it was called. I was in grade school. I just remembered it was the funniest thing.
man i miss these days.
These days not only would it open your CD drive, it would open your tax documents, your crypto wallet, your account cookies, probably even your banking information.
The modern internet fucking sucks dude.
Put the rose tinted glasses to one side. We still had harmful viruses back in the day, difference is these days you are storing more private information “online” so the effect of compromise is larger.
Back then, there were still lots of “wipers” that deleted files and/or destroyed the OS. Now it’s all spyware and ransomware.
i’m mostly just sad that the funny side of malicious software is gone.
There’s no more funny malware. It’s all ransomware and stealers.
There’s no more funny malware.
That depends who gets infected.
You or me infected by malware? No thanks!
Egon Mark infected by malware? Absolute hilarity!
i mean yeah, but that’s only situationally funny.
Yeah I haven’t had harmful application on my computer in over a decade. I feel like you really have to go out of your way to get one these days (not including spyware that you download intentionally, like Windows 11).
Vandalism became theft and kidnapping
Oh don’t worry, malicious .exe files were all over the forums back then.
u aren’t wrong.
Sub7 existed before 2000 if I’m not mistaken.
I have a folder of “pranks” like these from way back and they were harmless but sure enough they fire off modern anti virus software.
I made one called “crash_bandicoot.exe” that opened the windows calculator in an infinite loop.
I had one of those, but it was just called putting something on the calculator key.
The modern school equivalent of cheap pranks on computers isn’t some elaborate virus, it’s just pressing the “mail” or “calculator” keys on the keyboard for the guy next to you. Never personally witnessed anything more elaborate, though my classmate apparently distributed dubious batch files he wrote once
How about the one that launched a dialog box: “Do you have a small penis? Yes/No”, and if you moved your mouse near the “No” button, the button would run away around the screen?
Man, good times.
Odd, that button always worked for me.
I remember with mobile phones you’d have an app that was called shave or something like that.
It would play the sound of a shaving apparatus and you’d run your phone across your cheek pretending to shave
This was a common April Fools prank back in my day. We would put a startup script on a person’s computer that opened their CD drive at random intervals. Drove them nuts!
That joke was constant in the early 00s.
Pretty sure this has been around since the mid 90s
Classics are timeless by definition. You witness the adolescence of culture.
I remember a guy who tied his baby’s rocker to the drive and wrote code to open and close the CD drive repeatedly lol. Fun times.
Hmm. Did the motor last? It’s obviously not built to provide that much torque/force, although I can’t say for sure it would be damaged by it.
They don’t say how much the seat was being rocked.
Maybe just a couple of inches. Enough for babby to sleep.
Yeah, but the baby alone would weigh far more than the tray and disk ever would. And then they’re doing it over and over again for an extended period.
Just a little push from pops at the beginning.
And they didn’t say it was a long term solution. For all we know, the drive was going to be replaced the following week.
Oh, so you’re thinking he’d start it first, and then start the program to be perfectly synced with the period of the rocking? I suppose that could work, although it would be tricky to get the timing just right by hand, or it would be for me.
And they didn’t say it was a long term solution. For all we know, the drive was going to be replaced the following week.
Yeah, and it might have electronics that will handle the extra load just by virtue of properties of the standard parts. Like I said, I don’t know that it’s bad idea, but I do wonder.
I think you’re taking this whole thing too seriously.
People can do whatever they want for the lulz.
I know, but I’ve been nerdsniped. I’m not mad or something, lol.
Did people download .exe files in 2006? We were so innocent.
& .bat s & ZIPs
An old fashioned meme but it checks out
naw, what you do is write a small exe to play “youre the best” by joe espesito through the pcspeaker at 15% volume than you can trigger remotely…randomly until the user goes mad
“doesnt anyone else Hear that?!”
I remember back when this was going around as
cokegift.exe
in the 90s.good one!
I miss Macbarf…