The First Amiga Virus - Something Wonderful Has Happened

[@ModernVintageGamer]

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[@ChuckFinley-m5e]

There seems to be a strong buzzing in the background of the video. Interference caught on the mic, maybe?

[@hamtaro126]

MVG, You got some "Download this Malware now" Scare Tactic Issues... Just... Stop with the Act!!!

[@Chrisboy265]

Disappointing to see that you’re doing these ad reads, but I understand that the additional funding can go a long way.

[@effectpower]

WT FTW MÄÄN!

[@Cmdrbzrd]

@@hamtaro126 Not malware, but there is Russian bias... Quite a bit of it.

[@neuroflare]

"I never wanted to destroy any software." Updating it to defeat protections and mitigations sure puts the lie to that line.

[@x-crisis]

I thought the same. I wonder how many poor people's lives were really soured by this action. As a kid I didn't have much money and would have been devastated to have my software (especially the legit software) destroyed by these actions.

[@5persondude]

“I never meant to hurt anyone” “No one ever does, SCA”

[@_..-.._..-.._]

Yeah, that part really sticks out.

[@MrFixiit]

im sure the cinese government didnt want to hurt anyone with thier covid virus either.

[@Fratm]

I don't think it was a lie. It was for the challenge, and then once people started disinfecting the virus, the new challenge became to hide it even more. Eventually it turned malicious.

[@amaruqlonewolf3350]

"It was never meant to cause harm" and I call that entirely BS. Constantly updating the virus so it can avoid detection, how's that NOT malicious?

[@TechGuyBeau]

Another example of: I did this thing with no intent to do harm… how could I know the damage it would do!! Sometimes, people need to slow down and think of the repercussions of their behaviour BEFORE they do it. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should

[@KahnShawnery]

Around '91 my friend had an Amiga. We would copy disks sent to us from European hacker groups. His Amiga randomly started printing BEER on the screen in a variety of fonts and colors upon booting up. We would have to reboot when that happened. It wasn't every boot, just sometimes. We suspected it came from a demo disk, probably the ACID demo.

[@redey1290]

That's fucking hilarious LMAO

[@Ironclad17]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="615">10:15</a> How are they going to claim it wasn't malicious, if they were actively updating it to bypass security?

[@acerimmer2000]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="548">9:08</a> "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."

[@HoroJoga]

Hey MVG, I didn't grow up with the Amiga, but I think there's a lot of people who want to know more abour its games. It'd be nice if you made a video of the better games on the system and current emulators to enjoy them. Cheers!

[@ModernVintageGamer]

Good idea I’ll put it on the list

[@JessicaFEREM]

I'd love to see it. I'm too young to have been in the amiga craze and I'd love to see some cool games

[@AirknightTails]

I also never grew up with the Amiga. But thanks to LGR's videos on the Amiga 500 and Fire & Ice. It made me get Amiga Forever and I couldn't be any more grateful

[@kri249]

I remember how amiga games had a certain look about their design that just gives away that they are amiga games, even when ported to consoles.

[@36iRealisedImOldToday]

I remember this, the problem was I was a kid with little money and I only had an Amiga because my dad left it when he moved out. So I'd go to those gaming conventions where you could get cheap or free copied software. What I didn't realise though is I paid money for Duke Nukem 3D and Doom (obviously not for the Amiga) and I played them thinking they were really short.... Only a few years ago did I learn I bought the shareware versions and they were passed off as the full game. I should have known cause they came in a CD case with a really well printed cover, but no box. Duke Nukem 3D is like three levels LOL!

[@RetroGameSpacko]

The shareware version had 6 levels

[@unverifiedbiotic]

They even ripped you off on the shareware. You never played any of those games since then?

[@36iRealisedImOldToday]

@@unverifiedbiotic No, the industry was moving so fast until the 2010s and it's only since like 2018 or so that I felt bored with gaming enough to want to go back.

[@36iRealisedImOldToday]

@@RetroGameSpacko I just remember one of each area, one in the cinema, one in space and there was another I cannot remember.

[@RetroGameSpacko]

@@36iRealisedImOldToday that sounds like the first level of each episode. o_O Sorry to ask this but, did you actually finish any of these levels to advance to the next? Also the shareware version is clearly labeled as shareware

[@glharlor]

If they didn't write the virus to destroy software then why did they update it when someone came up with an antivirus. They clearly had malicious intentions

[@ricardolmendes]

Exactly. And worst of all is people putting them on a pedestal and even this video treats them as legends in a not negative way which is morally questionable.

[@hishamk]

They’re assholes.

[@felixdaniels37]

​@@ricardolmendes That's a massive issue with the tech scene in general. Blatant sociopaths who do nothing but make things worse are put on an undeserved pedestal by people blinded by the hype. It directly leads to this dystopian cesspool the scene has ended up being.

[@isakill]

My first computer virus was the green worm. Caught it off of a mouse driver disc. I then became obsessed with them and started collecting. By the time I was done, I had a couple megabytes worth of them. This was back when 40MB harddrives were considered large.

[@MrMario2011]

Never knew about any of this, but can feel all the emotions as you described getting hit with the virus. Fantastic coverage 🖤

[@mrhaftbar]

When i got an amiga in 1989, a friend told me never to leave disks write enabled.

[@jackhaberdasher6396]

In the Sega Genesis game "Red Zone" there is a scene where your character inserts a virus into a computer system. The words "Something wonderful has happened" show as an easter egg and I've always wondered what that meant. It could be a reference to this virus. kzbin.info/www/bejne/fIuupIRmbtaCoZYsi=VmXNbpQpcqmUkp2e&t=546 at <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="546">9:06</a>

[@Nero-t9x]

I never got any viruses from pirated disks, but did come across some Workbench hacks i.e. Lemmings, Window washer, June Bug, Fleas or little black dots randomly using objects to climb etc... and little white men that could walk around on the Workbench screen and using icons to climb and fall off from, to name a few.

[@martynburrows4110]

I remember having this exact sca virus, im getting nostalgia about it now 😂 I remember removing the virus with my program disk simply called virus killer, i still have the same program disk today. Thank you MVG for the insight to this, i never knew i would be so interested about a virus i only wanted to get rid of back in the day 👍

[@SuperSmashDolls]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="310">5:10</a> "legitimate copies" - it's funny how weirdly obsessed commercial pirates are with keeping their pirated warez from being pirated again

[@jetshaler]

I'd say it's more a legitimacy phrase. If I have a "legit copy" I dumped myself, then I know it will be the same as my "official copy." A pirated copy would therefore mean I have no clue if the game is 1:1 perfect or if something is inconsistent for whatever reason, and I have no way to check the original dump source.

[@stevethepocket]

Well, yeah, if they're selling their stolen goods for money, they don't want people stealing them for free.

[@Ningyo42]

I remember getting a virus from Lemmings too. From what I understood, it was called the LAMER virus, as it wrote "LAMER" to three (I think it was three) random places on any disc put in. Bad data and disks then followed. I never got the something wonderful message. I'm glad that this was (well before) I got a hard drive!

[@disklamer]

Sorry about that

[@mintfresh6547]

Razor 1911? Damn, they were active that long ago in the Amiga era? I am too young to be in that era so I did not realize. I respected them but now this adds more. That is awesome. I thought they were more recent

[@halucinujte]

yes they're active from 1911, hence the name

[@hypnotised-clover]

They cracked the enigma code.

[@BlitterObject]

Great video! I am 99% sure that the commercial release of Vader shipped with the SCA virus.

[@darkstatehk]

Does anyone remember a program on the Amiga called "Virus Construction Set" or something along those lines? It was a program that could extract the virus from the bootblock and store it in a local database. You could then boot up VCS and select a virus you wanted to install onto the disk. Some of the viruses could be installed in parallel, meaning the disk could have had more than one virus on it. Back then, we had fun installing viruses on a friends system thinking nothing of it. I would never dream of doing such things today.

[@Gekneveld]

I never had it, but I heard about it. I did have a disc that booted into a menu that let you choose 4 viruses to install. I never clicked, I had a friend that was bugged by the Sadam-virus so I knew this could have serious consequences.

[@turrican4d599]

@@Gekneveld Saddam had it coming.

[@markthintie5132]

@<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="26">0:26</a> My favourite Amiga Cracktro was/is Chuck Rock II - Anthrox. Not sure if it was a virus or not back in the day. but i had Mc Donald land game and Ctrl A A would not reset the game and it would always come back.

[@hundgirridchannel]

If you had the original Commodore 1MB RAM expansion that contained a battery to mantain the clock settings, you were in trouble because, even if you turned off the Amiga, some viruses still remained in memory thanks to that battery. Viruses were so common back in the days but you can still find them today in some disk images from tosec.

[@MarcoGPUtuber]

Something wonderful has happened! MVG uploaded!

[@nimrodlevy]

What a fascinating story! As someone who has never seen an amiga computer in his life...

[@pmachapman]

The book "More Tricks & Tips for the Amiga" had a source listing for a program to remove the SCA virus entitled "The ultimate virus killer" lol

[@paybo3573]

"Number 5 is alive" now I know where that quote came from. I found it in Astro's Playroom when I found the PS5 artifact 😂

[@Professorke]

I myself inadvertently wrote a virus for the Amiga. I had created a security program to protect my floppies, but somewhere I had made a mistake and it unintentionally infected other floppies. Fortunately, it was not widespread and I was still able to stop it from doing further harm.

[@williamwright9079]

I remember getting the virus in New Zealand circa 1991, It was real spooky I thought the Amiga had come to life!

[@calwhiting5754]

Good vid mate, more Amiga content please!

[@moregamemusic]

I had so many problems with something called Byte Bandit back in the day. Hated it!

[@cheulesyigess1187]

Todays most common virus is Happy New Year 1994, shorted as HNY94. It still returns, over and over again.

[@Ittiz]

As a kid I remember that virus. Although we didn't have a HD on the Amiga at the time and one of our biggest troubleshooting steps was to turn the computer off and on. So it never infected any other disks.

[@turrican4d599]

All you would have had to do would have been to call a friend that has the same game as you just naively destroyed. He would lend it to you and you could copy the bootblock from his disk onto your "destroyed" one.

[@drewba7741]

Something wonderful has happened. Your phone is alive!

[@carlobiondini4906]

Back in the days i had this very peculiar virus-killer that whould recognize ONLY the SCA pattern on disk, replace it with a standard dos boot-sector and play a sample of Queen's "we are the champions"when succeeded. Anyone remembers it?

[@etansivad]

This is nitpicking, but the moire effect @<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="324">5:24</a> shouldn't be scaling like that. If it was an actual CRT monitor. Normally wouldn't care that much, but this is a retro vintage channel ;) Thanks for posting this. Never had an amiga, so it's fun to hear this side of the gaming world. I did come across more than a few infected DOS diskettes though....

[@SteveM000100]

Oh ffs my ffs is infested

[@Nob1ej0n]

Huh, thankfully here in the US I didn't know anyone else with an Amiga. So we had no way of sharing floppies. I didn't learn about viruses until later.

[@Gekneveld]

I remember having had two viruses on the Amiga but I don't remember the name. One was more of a 'fun' virus that melted the workbench, I got rid of it quickly with an antivirus disc. It didn't seem to do any damage apart from locking up you Amiga. The other one was on an infected copy of Oktalyzer. It ruined all my oktalyzer modules and some data on other discs too. I remember that it renamed the files as well. At one point a had a disc with a small menu on which you could choose to install 4 viruses. Never used it. The last virus I had was only last years. A trojan for windows that was hidden on a linux distribution (Slax). It quickly spread on all my HD's but I managed to get it off with some boot disc (defender couldn't manage it).

[@SelfIndulgentGamer]

I remember and may still own, a pd disk that actually came with a virus writing program on it. An interesting one was the time bomb virus, which you could set up to format a disk after x amount of boots 😅

[@TheSegacampGamerandWerecamp]

I give you Credit Dude! I only knew of Macintosh Computers when I went to School and when I got home my Parent's had the Windows 3.1 which later got Upgraded to Windows 95 I never owned a Amiga Computer!

[@qettyz]

I also learned hard way to keep writing protect on.

[@SoberHighDrunk]

Helluva post launch anti piracy measure if u think about it

[@elbiggus]

The first virus I got bitten by was the Lamer Exterminator which was a lot sneakier; it patched an IO vector so that attempting to read a bootblock from an infected disk always returned a "clean" one making it hard to identify.

[@vornamenachname1796]

Der Bootsektor bei AMIGA Software wurde zerstört. Danke für den Spaß, denn anfangs ließen sich nur DOS-Spiele reparieren. Bootloader waren zerstört.

[@daveandlouise123]

Ahh, the old "guru meditation" message was always a fun way to know you'd inadvertently loaded a virus. Happy days

[@disklamer]

Wasn't that the "crash" message?

[@NerdENerd]

That was the crash message of early versions of Amiga DOS. Like a Windows blue screen.

[@36iRealisedImOldToday]

Anyone remember "ILOVEYOU" on Windows? Something every boy fell for lol... THERE IS A GIRL THAT LOVES ME? I MUST CLICK! lol.

[@roygalaasen]

I remember that. I was working in support department of a semi big company. Started the computer for my days work and I got a message from someone who actually could have sent me a love message. I deferred clicking on the message. Less than half an hour later messages professing their love for me started pouring in and at that point I understood that something fishy was going on. Wasn’t too difficult to sort the problem. Just adding a filter to the email gateway to remove all messages fitting a certain pattern till virus scanner providers managed to get their signature files updated.

[@awvalenti]

Loved the video! Not sure if I got this part: original games shipping with viruses?? How could this happen? Didn't they test the final product before mass production, or did the virus work silently for enough time to go unnoticed?

[@MrLaprius]

Not many people had a PC...at that time who'd want one?!? Amiga was the only game in town!

[@bravedwarf]

This is absolutely amazing video! Bravo bro! 👊🏼

[@Mrshoujo]

Thank goodness I had Atari ST disks which I installed a Virus Free protection boot sector. It would detect disks with boot info & flash the screen & make a sound.

[@SilentCheesedude]

I got the Lamer Exterminator virus from a store bought game on my Amiga. It ruined the game and one music disk, but i managed to catch it before it moved onto other disks. Was super angry 😡

[@multicoloredwiz]

oh god you just gave a bunch of old farts horrible flashbacks. thanks.

[@disklamer]

Long story short the herb guy stole the wrong diskette /with not just samples/ and evidently all his customers got a copy. The samples themselves went way further than their creator, featuring in some headliner performances. It was a funny era.

[@pronstorestiffi]

Hey MVG just letting you know there is a pretty bad humming sound in the background on some parts of the video. Almost sounds like a cable thats not entirely plugged in or something similar.

[@youuuuuuuuuuutube]

What a time to be alive, it was.

[@methical__]

Realms of Arkania, loved it as a kid!

[@mariotaz]

This is a great story. Thanks

[@fcukugimmeausername]

We used to get pirated games all the time for our Amiga. Never once came across and virus like this :\

[@weegaz22]

I had an amiga 1200 when i was a kid and out of the 1000's of dodgy pirated disks it seen under my ownership i'd never seen or even heard of this....

[@nigew25]

Trying to remember. I can't recall this. I was swapping discs as I never bought a game from a shop. I must have had an anti-virus disc. I had the Action Reply MK2 And x-copy. I had a PC emulator and tried to use Pascal and WordStar at home. But it was so slow and I was useless at programming!

[@mehere3013]

never had any viruses on amiga and I had loads of discs

[@picc9000]

Accidentally infect all your games with a virus? Mistakes were made.

[@RayRayIsCoolio]

ohh man, I can't tell if we're safer or in way more danger when it comes to computer viruses. I haven't felt "safe" on Windows for awhile

[@williamdrum9899]

Windows is the virus these days

[@TidusleFlemard]

Current windows is pretty safe these days if you abide by the guidelines: - don't be stupid when downloading, if not sure, analyze it by online antivirus - never, ever, usa an usb stick you found somewhere, it's out of the 10s rules since awhile.

[@youuuuuuuuuuutube]

You can always run a VirtualBox and then you'll be 100% safe. You can even test viruses that way.

[@spyczech]

Defintely safer in my opinion more walled gardens to prevent downloading viruses in first place. just resist urge to click on sketchy links

[@Moremjd]

The OS is the virus

[@Likwidfox]

1991 my parents said get all "A's" and I get a computer. I did and in 1999 I got a Gateway.

[@jackburton8352]

My AMOS Pro disk became infected i was beyond pissed because this was not cheap software at the time two or three times the cost of a major release if memory serves.

[@skycloud4802]

Getting malware before the days of modern internet must be horrifying. Where would the average Joe even turn to?

[@tazgamerplays]

How was it able to keep from being removed when power was removed? If I missed it I'm sorry, I'm sick and not focusing all that well today.

[@BillyNix]

What an awesome story!

[@rztrzt]

My disks were always write protected and if something like that happened I would hit the power button.

[@Buchanj5.]

I don't know if it's just me, but throughout this video i hear a low frequency hum excluding at the part with the Sponsor and from <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="372">6:12</a>-<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="490">8:10</a> & <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="871">14:31</a> till the end of the video. Honestly makes it hard to watch and pay attention as the hum is very distracting.

[@thespiderthread]

Amazing video as always! While I knew about the existence of this virus, hearing this story from someone who was actually an Amiga user and encountered it in the wild like that is fascinating! Plus I didn't know that much about SCA as a group. I generally love it whenever you talk about the Amiga or the demo scene, so this was a real treat. Small correction though: at <a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="270">4:30</a> you call Brain the first virus to make its way to home computers. It's not an entirely accurate way of phrasing it; it was indeed the first known *IBM PC* virus. However, there were earlier examples of viruses for other microcomputers, notably the Apple II. The most common consensus is that Elk Cloner from 1982 is the first home computer virus. Still, Brain can be, in a way, considered the first home computer virus of renown, so I get wanting to talk about that particular example. It's a more apt comparison to the SCA virus, anyways. Small nitpick but hey, early computer viruses are kinda my area of study, so I can't help but point it out. Anyways, can't wait for the next video! Huge fan of what you do here.

[@connorkiss2614]

Love the shout out to Perth, WA

[@junkins]

Very cool and interesting video, thank you!

[@ExperimentIV]

omg i was just at world of commodore a few weeks ago! my dad used to know Jim Butterfield, because they were both in the same user group (TPUG), and my dad was one of their software librarians, as well as briefly being on their board of directors. i wonder if my dad was at that WoC, but it might have been a year or so before he got into Commodores.

[@3dmotormaker]

There were boot block virus' in 1988 that even I know of.

[@n2n8sda]

First virus I remember getting was "Your computer is now Stoned", which worked pretty much the same as this, came on a PC version copy of Xenon II.

[@gregmark1688]

Stoned is the only PC virus I ever got hit with. After that, I paid attention to what I was running, that's for sure. I mean, we couldn't have me AND the PC being stoned all the time ...

[@msh6610]

The nuke(d) (bootblock) virus ravaged mine, just as you explained. I learned what a virus could do and the value of write protecting atleast😂Good times 😁😅

[@AnnabelleFern]

If they didn't write the virus to destroy software then why did they update it when someone came up with an antivirus.

[@randyvoid155]

>>college in 91 dude, i was in first grade...

[@WatchWiseUS]

Long live Slipstream (the group I may or may not have been a part of :) )

[@turbolenza35]

Salut Guillermito, je pense que ça te rappelle de bons souvenirs ;)

[@JustPeter1776]

More importantly, did you get to play lemmings eventually? 😅

[@meecob]

I remember that day well too. It happened with the SCA for me too

[@AliJ]

I was waiting for a twist reveal at the end💀 and chris from SCA….. is me

[@myfaveyoutube]

Amiga kids know what’s up

[@DarkShroom]

i never had that virus but tbh also i'm not sure where in memory you think it could hide... as far as i understand you could run a bootloader on the amiga, one such example was action replay... so if you loaded a program like that, that could then be used to infect the other disk so i assume it tricked you into giving an "insert disk" screen? see you didn't have any memory on the amiga that would survive switching off the computer, also yeah like you mention it was best practise to lot leave diskettes write eneabled unless it was a save game disk or disk you used to write to

[@666Astrosmurf]

Was that before byte bandit and lamer exterminator?

[@rtyuik7]

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="663">11:03</a> - oh ffs :-P

[@poonsamurai]

This is great. I was just thinking about those days recently, and thought to myself that I wish you’d do more scene videos. More please.

[@theadamtron]

Thankyou for this video! What an amazing trip into Amiga history and a walk down memory lane.

[@desiv1170]

I remember that one...

[@CzlowiekDrzewo]

Wow. These SCA guys sure sound like losers.

[@haralamc]

My first experience with a virus was one that stopped svchost.exe on windows 2000 causing pc to power off

[@kit7une_]

Was it Sasser? kzbin.info/www/bejne/eJnXqniancqjf8U

[@UnCoolDad]

Hope you don't get a copyright strike.

[@xard64]

I really don't buy these intentions. It should be as CLEAR AS DAY for any programmer not being a copy paste script kiddie that writing over unknown data is a DESTRUCTIVE operation. It's like saying that "firing randomly at people just for the reaction" would be okay because you did not intend to hurt anybody.

[@zaphod77]

the writer failed to scan the disk before infecting to verify that the infection process wouldn't break anything, and forgot to cosnider that it was possible that some software would use non standard disc i/o and need to write to it's disc. It is a really common fault present in many viruses intended to be harmless and funny. This is not the first harmless virus to break stuff, and it won't be the last.

[@plugexpert]

I have a lot of disks where I have mods on that can't be read anymore in protracker, checksum errors etc. Now I wonder if it is the quality of the disks OR just viruses that have corrupted teh ability to read them. What would be a good virus checker for an amiga 2000 with a gotek drive to get rid of these (Saddam)viruses, also would write enable the discs not affect the harddrive if a virus is present?

[@physalis17]

That's wild because I am really getting into watching Amiga repair videos on KZbin and learning about the hardware. I wonder if any of the channels I watch have ran into the SCA Virus.

[@MatSpeedle]

I still have a small box of disks from my dads Atari ST, Labeled Virus Disks which dates to early 90's. Not sure why he kpet them. Could be some interesting virus history on there though.

[@johantibbelin417]

One of the common viruses on the ST is called Ghost virus it inverts the y axis of the mouse pointer after it copied itself to a couple of disks. As "harmless" as the SCA virus.