Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!bu-cs!purdue!i.cc.purdue.edu!j.cc.purdue.edu!pur-ee!iuvax!bsu-cs!cfchiesa From: cfchiesa@bsu-cs.UUCP (Christopher Chiesa) Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.8bit Subject: Re: Atari 8-bit virus?? Summary: Virus Message-ID: <3171@bsu-cs.UUCP> Date: 22 May 88 21:36:05 GMT References: <959@fredonia.UUCP> Organization: CS Dept, Ball St U, Muncie, Indiana Lines: 17 I'd be surprised if there were an Atari virus, for most of the reasons al- ready mentioned here; additionally, I find that most of the programs I use on a regular basis don't like to work right if the program I ran before them has left anything in memory, therefore I have to turn the computer off and back on just to go from one program to another. I'd like to see a virus sur- vive THAT! Besides, if nothing else, there just isn't a lot of memory avail- able for a virus, even if one did get written! On the other hand, you could write a SIMPLE one that could be appended onto other, legitimate program files and go in and do nasty things... Would be hard for it to propagate, though, what with memory restrictions, constraints on system pointers, cycle-counting constraints on DLIs, VBIs, or any other attempted "behind-the-scenes" manipu- lations, the "noisy bus" I/O, and so on and so forth.... -- UUCP: !{iuvax,pur-ee,uunet}!bsu-cs!cfchiesa cfchiesa@bsu-cs.UUCP