Computer virus/Talk

I think the term Computer Virus originated much earlier than 1985. My high school maths teacher explained the concept to me and used the term in 1979 or 1980. I got the impression it was not exactly a new thing then, although the actual number of viruses that had spread in the wild at that early date must have been very small.

Taw, your contribution is lame. The early days of DOS would be the 1950s, on IBM mainframes, and that was before there were any known viruses. I also don't think the bit about languages that viruses are written in is very useful; at best it's an overgeneralization. However, instead of just deleting your text, like you do to other people, I'll leave it up to you to fix your own text. Have a nice day, and remember, Wikipedia is a community. GregLindahl

You seem to be confused by fact that there was more than one operating system called DOS. They had little to do with each other. Anyway, here is a fix. --Taw

No, I am not confused at all; I am aware of quite a few OSes called DOS. Thanks for fixing that one bit, but maybe you could address my other criticisms? GregLindahl

Well, I can't help with 'lameness' of my contribution. --Taw

You could, but I was mainly asking you to address my other criticisms: "I also don't think the bit about languages that viruses are written in is very useful; at best it's an overgeneralization." While I'm at it, you could choose to clarify the bit about removable media; companies accidentaly spread viruses by CDROM all the time. Or you could decide that nobody believes what you wrote (even though you do) and just delete it. Your choice. It's an anarchy. GregLindahl

Perhaps the worm paragraph should make the distinction between viruses and worms clear while also noting that the two concepts are often conflated in general use. -- Taral