Hmmmmm.
In reply to Brent Woods:
>>
>> ...Not to mention
>> the fact that the development and advance of technology should have the
>> semiconductor technology that the Cymbeline chips (and, presumably,
>> their Deyo descendants) far enough behind in technical history that
>> current Imperial technology should be utterly immune to any invasion of
>> that type. In other words, the Virus should be impossible...
I disagree. It is the same old argument about thicker walls..
Lord of Castle: "These walls are 20ft thick. Break them down? Impossible!"
(Outside) BANG! WHEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeee...........BOOOOM!
Lord of Castle: "Ooops..."
You cannot say that simply because the Cymbeline chips are old, that what is
*in* them (i.e. software) will be limited to current tech capabilities of the
time. I am not an expert on the *VIRUS* (Da dah!!), but I would have thought
that it would be capable of adapting it cybernetic attacks to cope with
something with more runtime, memory etc. than it. If I write a virus
(heaven forbid!) on a ZX81 with UNIX emulation...alright, seriously, an 8088
PC running LINUX, it will still work on someone else's HP Apollo, or Sparc-10
or Cray or ANYTHING that runs UNIX. Processor power is irrelevant.
Presumably current Imp. Tech. would have moved to something a bit better than
impure silicon chunks, and started using optical systems, or Josephson
Junctions (yeah!!!). Even so, the same argument applies. Clever software
with enough I/O, is capable of almost **anything**. I just wish the stuff I
write was nearly as clever...... ;-(
BTW, has there been any backlash against software engineers due to the Virus?
I mean, it's the classic scenario - God Squadders raving on about it being
a punishment - we should never have learnt to program in the first place
etc..., the unwashed masses setting fire to Workstations in the streets,
line printers being hounded out of town, modems and disk drives living
together in unmarried sin, RS-232 cables turning to drink and drugs... sorry,
got carried away there!
Well?
James.
PS Just Read something about the Virus 'reblowing chips' etc.
Could someone elaborate? Privately if it will bore everyone else....