Dr. Annie Gray

Business was good.

The warning was clear.

If the software was copied, then the special code that Amjad and his brother Basit had written into the programme would spread to other computers.

Amjad forgot about his project for the doctor.

Then, one day, he was working late.

She said, I have a problem with my computer and it tells me to contact you.

Remember that software that Amdad wrote for his doctor friend and clearly warned him not to copy?

Well, somehow it must have been copied because the code on that software had spread to computers everywhere.

It was the start of a virus and people all over the world were reading this message on their screen.

Phone 430 4432 530 Beware of this virus.

It reached US, UK, Australia, China, Singapore.

The brain computer virus was spreading around the world.

So what exactly is a computer virus?

BBC TV show The Net explained all in 1994.

Viruses are bits of software code that can creep into your system and clone themselves.

At the most harmless, they can just produce pretty pictures on your screen.

But at their most pernicious, they can destroy all your data.

Amjad knew that his brain virus was a harmless one, but not everyone thought that.

Here's some of what Time magazine wrote in 1988.

Using a binary editor, the computer equivalent of a high-powered magnifying glass, systems engineer Peter Schiedler examined the disk's contents line by line.