Elk Cloner

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the first boot sector virus, written on that wonderful little contraption called an Apple II. Boy, that was some hacking power in that machine. Rich Skrenta wrote this virus, named Elk Cloner, when he was in ninth grade as a prank around the year 1982. Rich, like many in those days, pirated software for the Apple II. He would slip in little bits of programming onto the pirated discs that he gave his friends so that they would display messages or shut down the computer. Once his friends had enough of this, they wouldn’t accept any more discs from him. Instead he devised a way to alter floppy discs without having to actually touch them. Hince, the boot sector virus was born.

Just think…a time without virus protection, and without the Internet as we know it today. He managed to get his virus to spread simply from having the virus copy itself to any disc put into the computer. With the Elk Cloner virus, on every 50th boot a short poem would display on the screen (see below). Granted, it’s minor compared to the viruses of today, but it was a pretty good feat of programming back then.


Elk Cloner: The program with a personality
It will get on all your disks
It will infiltrate your chips
Yes it's Cloner!

It will stick to you like glue
It will modify RAM too

Send in the Cloner!