Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: space news from March 27 AW&ST
Message-ID: <1989May11.183606.26311@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <20558@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
Date: Thu, 11 May 89 18:36:06 GMT

In article <20558@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante) writes:
>-Coming soon to a spacecraft near you:  viruses in space!!
>-There is something to be said for *not* being PC-compatible.
>
>Only if you say it for not being *anything* - compatible.  Or are you
>advocating Multics-in-Space?

Agreed that the problem exists in theory for most any computer system.
In practice, the odds of problems with viruses and the like drop sharply
if you are neither PC-compatible nor Mac-compatible, since those are the
major targets for would-be spreaders of contagion.  (Unix is somewhat
less common and has a much better immune system.)  Of course, this also
means that space scientists interested in software development are less
likely to have a compatible system handy...
-- 
Mars in 1980s:  USSR, 2 tries, |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
2 failures; USA, 0 tries.      | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu