32JMX3X%CMUVM.BITNET@VM1.gatech.edu (AMR E. MALIK) (08/11/90)
In his mail mike writes: Starting around the beginning of May, our
- -office's IBM/PCs began showing a strange thing on their screens: A
- -"bouncing ball" type of graphic which floats around the screen,
- -bouncing off the boundaries. The ball appears when I'm in DOS, and
- -disappears when an application is run. It's not there all the time, and
- -I don't know what triggers its appearance. Anyway, what I'm getting at
- -is:
- -
- -1) Has anyone else come across this phenomenon? What is it?
- -2) Is it a symptom of a deeper problem? My boss is telling me to ignore
- -it, but I'm nervous that it might be connected to a virus.
- -
- -Thanks for your help, Mike yacullo@remus.rutgers.edu
Please don't listen to your boss and try to disinfect your disks before
it destroys your data. I was reading John McAfee's book about viruses a
few days ago and it said about some virus of the same sort which shows a
bouncing ball while it is reproducing and infecting other programs in
the system.
This book said about another sort of virus which shows small bugs coming
out of all four corners which eat (delete) the words on the screen and
destroy all the data files meanwhile,
So I think it is better that you check your system for virus and keep a
backup
Good Luck !
Amr E. Malik
Consultant Ronan Computer Lab
Central Michigan University
:-) --------------------------------------------------------------- :-|
Aren't they shrewd and clever ,wanna' keep me here for ages
But I can't live for ever,so they made me freezing cages..
My hands they want to sever, so that I can write but never...
All these crazy pages.. ------ Amr E. Malik ------gentry@uunet.UU.NET (Tim Gentry) (08/14/90)
Amr Malik writes: > ... I was reading John McAfee's book about viruses a > few days ago and it said about some virus of the same sort which shows a > bouncing ball while it is reproducing and infecting other programs in > the system. > > This book said about another sort of virus which shows small bugs coming > out of all four corners which eat (delete) the words on the screen and > destroy all the data files meanwhile, OK, the "bouncing ball" effect >is< a characteristic of a virus, but the "small bugs" visual effect is (to the best of my knowledge) not. A small TSR .com file called "bugres.com" is responsible for this effect. When the program is installed pressing Alt-B will invoke the visual effect. It's really a lot of fun to watch, and it is NOT a virus! (Unless, of course, somebody has hacked into the code) -Tim Tim Gentry Boeing Computer Services (206) 234-1640 gentry@bcstec.boeing.com uunet!bcstec!gentry