4 Jan
2013
4 Jan
'13
1:15 p.m.
geneb writes:
As far as I know, there was never a known instance of
a virus on an 8 bit machine.
"Elk Cloner" for the Apple II, according to Rich Skrenta went wild in 1982. Was
written up very nicely in a Scientific American article in March 1985 (good enough that I
wrote a "me too" virus based on the article.)
Very similar to what a IBM-PC guy would call "a boot sector virus" (although
really there's a little more than that in either the Apple II or PC-clone cases.)
It would be interesting if any of the Apple II disk image archives, have Elk Cloner or
lookalikes in them. I once thought about automating such a search as an addition over the
effort to index the Apple II disk images floating around on the net. Haven't thought
of that in, oh, nearly 20 years now!!!
Tim.
4 Jan
4 Jan
2:05 p.m.
On Fri, 4 Jan 2013, Shoppa, Tim wrote:
geneb writes:
Ah, I'd forgotten about that one. Thanks Tim.
Anything for CP/M? :)
g.
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As far as I know, there was never a known
instance of a virus on an 8 bit machine.
"Elk Cloner" for the Apple II, according to Rich Skrenta went wild in
1982. Was written up very nicely in a Scientific American article in
March 1985 (good enough that I wrote a "me too" virus based on the
article.)
Very similar to what a IBM-PC guy would call "a boot sector virus"
(although really there's a little more than that in either the Apple II
or PC-clone cases.)
It would be interesting if any of the Apple II disk image archives, have
Elk Cloner or lookalikes in them. I once thought about automating such a
search as an addition over the effort to index the Apple II disk images
floating around on the net. Haven't thought of that in, oh, nearly 20
years now!!! 
2:29 p.m.
On 01/04/2013 11:05 AM, geneb wrote:
Anything for CP/M? :)
I've never seen one and I think it highly unlikely. The organization of
hardware from one vendor to the next was just not worth exploiting,
given a relatively small community of each market segment.
Not saying that it wasn't possible, but unlikely that such a virus could
propagate successfully.
--Chuck
2:33 p.m.
In article <alpine.LFD.2.02.1301041105250.20587 at sidewinder.deltasoft.com>,
geneb <geneb at deltasoft.com> writes:
Anything for CP/M? :)
I believe there were viruses for Amiga and Atari ST, both of which
were M68K based. Not sure about C=64 and the 8-bit Ataris.
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2:53 p.m.
There were c-64 viruses, here's a technical document about them,
http://hitmen.c02.at/files/docs/c64/C64_Virus_List.txt
though I had never really heard of any of these or seen them
Dan.
To: cctalk at classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: 8 bit virii
From: legalize at xmission.com
Date: Fri, 4 Jan 2013 12:33:01 -0700
In article <alpine.LFD.2.02.1301041105250.20587 at sidewinder.deltasoft.com>,
geneb <geneb at deltasoft.com> writes:
Anything for CP/M? :)
I believe there were viruses for Amiga and Atari ST, both of which
were M68K based. Not sure about C=64 and the 8-bit Ataris.
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" free book
<http://tinyurl.com/d3d-pipeline>
The Computer Graphics Museum <http://computergraphicsmuseum.org>
The Terminals Wiki <http://terminals.classiccmp.org>
Legalize Adulthood! (my blog) <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
3:18 p.m.
In article <BLU166-W2021BE49A75BFB67390DB8C9200 at phx.gbl>,
Dan Gahlinger <dgahling at hotmail.com> writes:
There were c-64 viruses, here's a technical
document about them,
http://hitmen.c02.at/files/docs/c64/C64_Virus_List.txt
though I had never really heard of any of these or seen them
Interestingly enough, that text file claims that there was a virus for
CP/M :-)
--
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" free book
<http://tinyurl.com/d3d-pipeline>
The Computer Graphics Museum <http://computergraphicsmuseum.org>
The Terminals Wiki <http://terminals.classiccmp.org>
Legalize Adulthood! (my blog) <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
3:50 p.m.
On 01/04/2013 12:18 PM, Richard wrote:
Interestingly enough, that text file claims that there
was a virus for
CP/M :-)
I'm not saying it's impossible, but all I see there is a "claim" and
exactly WHAT version/vendor of CP/M isn't given, nor what the virus does
as well as its transmission method.
So, as in "free energy" technology, the evidence seems to be hearsay.
--Chuck
4:59 p.m.
On Fri, 4 Jan 2013, Chuck Guzis wrote:
I'm not saying it's impossible, but all I see
there is a "claim" and
exactly WHAT version/vendor of CP/M isn't given, nor what the virus does
as well as its transmission method.
So, as in "free energy" technology, the evidence seems to be hearsay.
I agree with Chuck that a BOOT-SECTOR virus would be doubtful for
CP/M, due to the lack of standardization of format. It could still
have been done for a specific CP/M implementation, such as APPLE CP/M,
Commode 128, Kaypro, Osborne, Superbrain, or maybe even 8"SSSD. It
would have to be written for a specific one. Which ones attracted
that mindset?
OTOH, an executable file virus would not be subject to THAT
limitation, and could have been done.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
2:11 p.m.
From: Shoppa, Tim
Sent: Friday, January 04, 2013 10:15 AM
Subject: Re: 8 bit virii
I have nothing to add regarding the technical discussion. I just want
to point out that there is no such Latin word as "virii".
Latin o-stems ("masculines ending in -us in the nominative singular and
neuters ending in -um in the nominative and accusative singular", for
the classically trained) form their nominative plural with the ending
-i. *Only* those o-stems in which an -i- precedes the ending, such as
the _gens_ ("family name") _Cornelius_, show a final -ii. (You would
refer to all the members of the Cornelius family as the _Cornelii_.)
_virus_ is an oddity. It is an o-stem, but it is a neuter, not a
masculine (that is, we would expect "virum" if it followed the usual
formation rule). Furthermore, it is a mass noun, meaning "slime,
poison", rather than a count noun.
(Cf. English "milk" vs. "goat"--although it is possible in English to
form a plural of a mass noun like "milk", the meaning of "milks" is
"kinds of milk, milk from different sources", and Latin does not permit
this formation.)
So in Latin, _virus_ only occurs in the singular.
Now, *in English*, the word "virus" has been borrowed from Latin but is
treated by the grammar of English as an ordinary count noun, and the
plural is "viruses".
I have no objection the formation of a Latinate plural "viri" or
"virii",
I simply want those making such to do so knowingly. ;-)
We now return you to your regularly scheduled topic drift.
Rich Alderson
Vintage Computing Sr. Systems Engineer
Vulcan, Inc.
505 5th Avenue S, Suite 900
Seattle, WA 98104
mailto:RichA at vulcan.com
mailto:RichA at LivingComputerMuseum.org
http://www.LivingComputerMuseum.org/
7:59 p.m.
On 4 January 2013 19:11, Rich Alderson <RichA at vulcan.com> wrote:
I have nothing to add regarding the technical
discussion. I just want
to point out that there is no such Latin word as "virii".
Latin o-stems ("masculines ending in -us in the nominative singular and
neuters ending in -um in the nominative and accusative singular", for
the classically trained) form their nominative plural with the ending
-i. *Only* those o-stems in which an -i- precedes the ending, such as
the _gens_ ("family name") _Cornelius_, show a final -ii. (You would
refer to all the members of the Cornelius family as the _Cornelii_.)
_virus_ is an oddity. It is an o-stem, but it is a neuter, not a
masculine (that is, we would expect "virum" if it followed the usual
formation rule). Furthermore, it is a mass noun, meaning "slime,
poison", rather than a count noun.
(Cf. English "milk" vs. "goat"--although it is possible in English
to
form a plural of a mass noun like "milk", the meaning of "milks" is
"kinds of milk, milk from different sources", and Latin does not permit
this formation.)
So in Latin, _virus_ only occurs in the singular.
Now, *in English*, the word "virus" has been borrowed from Latin but is
treated by the grammar of English as an ordinary count noun, and the
plural is "viruses".
I have no objection the formation of a Latinate plural "viri" or
"virii",
I simply want those making such to do so knowingly. ;-)
We now return you to your regularly scheduled topic drift.
I inferred the poster of that one within about 2sec without looking at
the headers. :?)
Now, for entertainment value - correct plurals of:
* index
* forum
* penis
* octopus
* rhinoceros
:?D
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8:28 p.m.
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Congress
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8:35 p.m.
On 5 January 2013 01:28, Cameron Kaiser <spectre at floodgap.com> wrote:
*Roar*
Excellent. :?D
(And yes, I know, had you been so inclined, you could have done just
as fine a job of deconstructing "virii" as Richard, Doctor
Linguist...)
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11 comments
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participants (9)
-
cclist＠sydex.com -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
dgahling＠hotmail.com -
geneb＠deltasoft.com -
legalize＠xmission.com -
lproven＠gmail.com -
RichA＠vulcan.com -
spectre＠floodgap.com -
tshoppa＠wmata.com