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If you are interested in more examples on what virus payloads did on activation, danooct1 on YouTube has recorded lots of them (link goes to the MS-DOS playlist): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLi_KYBWS_E71ObQ8QpGj5...

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This was awesome.

Wish I knew the most interesting/popular of these.

My first virus/worm(one that wasnt adware from freeware games) was the Conficker-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conficker

Think I got it for sticking my USB in college and HS computers. Back then having a USB full of cool things was a big deal. I probably infected hundreds of computers.

That Conficker spread widely and remained active for a long time could be attributed to the fact that it was relatively benign --- in contrast to ransomware, both that article and my memories of it agree that it did not destroy user data, which would've lead to a far more intense "immune response".

The most known viruses of "my time" (even portrayed in local national television) was Cascade, where all the letters fall to the bottom of the screen, and Jerusalem, activating on friday 13th of any month. You were even advised to keep the computer off that day!

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