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From: chapman@ug.cs.dal.ca (Paul Chapman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.apps
Subject: Re: Joke or Virus?
Summary: Probably a joke
Message-ID: <1990Dec8.041621.26662@cs.dal.ca>
Date: 8 Dec 90 04:16:21 GMT
References: <1990Dec5.153445.7094@mmm.serc.3m.com>
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Organization: Math, Stats & CS, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada
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In article <1990Dec5.153445.7094@mmm.serc.3m.com> us269574@mmm.serc.3m.com (Darryn J. Kozak) writes:
>I received an unusual dialog error message yesterday and was wondering if
>it was truly an error - or maybe a virus. I was running an application 
>(Diskfit - backup utility), when a dialog box was displayed that had a
>bomb in it, the following message: "Sorry a critiical shortage of memory
>has forced this program to be terminated. Please assign blame below:",
>four check boxes (labeled: programmer, user, hardware, cosmic rays), and
>a default button labeled "Finder").
>
>Is this a Diskfit error, a system error, a virus - someones idea of a joke?
>
>At the time I didn't think it was very funny, since I had just backed up
>about 45MB of 55MB to floppies.
>
>Anyone know?
>

    Although I don't use DiskFit, I suspect that the program ran out of
memory.  When a program tries to allocate memory and for one reason or
another it can't, it gets a message back to that effect.  It's then up to the
program to cope with the situation as well as it can.  Unfortunately, running
out of memory is difficult to handle easily without greatly complicating
matters and so programs typically just halt whatever they're doing and tell
you.

    The dialog box you got, IMHO, was the programer having a bit of fun in
the middle of the night.  It's probably not a virus.
-- 
-= Paul Chapman -=- chapman@ug.cs.dal.ca -=- pc@ac.dal.ca (BitNet) =-
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