Alan Cooper is often incorrectly cited as the inventor of the computer virus.
The first PC virus according to "Computer Security Basics" by Lloyd Stovall was not discovered until 1986.
Cooper asserted that his colleague, Robert Morris, created it in 1988 but there is no evidence for this assertion whatsoever with respect to date or content.
Morris did create a rogue internet deathmatch game in 1988 called "Internet Deathmatch" which could have been re-purposed and repackaged as a virus at a later date. It has also been shown that he had published a note on how to create what was termed at the time a "harmless self-replicating program"...