Word: screens
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...reporter at the Providence Journal-Bulletin, had carefully slipped a disk holding six months' worth of notes and interviews into one of the newsroom computers when the machine's familiar whir was pierced by a sharp, high-pitched beep. Each time she tried to call a file to the screen, the warning DISK ERROR flashed instead. It was as if the contents of her floppy disk had vanished. "I got that sinking feeling," recalls Joselow. "Every writing project of mine was on that disk...
...some observers see an emerging pattern: the virus writers tend to be men in their late teens or early 20s who have spent an inordinate portion of their youth bathed in the glow of a computer screen. Scientific American Columnist A.K. Dewdney, who published the first article on computer viruses, describes what he calls a "nerd syndrome" common among students of science and technology. Says Dewdney: "They live in a very protected world, both socially and emotionally. They leave school and carry with them their prankish bent...
...Macintosh owners turned on their machines, they were greeted by a drawing of planet earth and a "universal message of peace" signed by Richard Brandow, a friend of Davidson's and the publisher of a Canadian computer magazine. The virus did no harm. It flashed its message on the screen and then erased its own instructions, disappearing without a trace...
...Peace virus capped a series of outbreaks that began last December, when a seemingly harmless Christmas greeting appeared mysteriously on terminals connected to a worldwide network owned and operated by IBM. Users who followed the instructions on the screen and typed the word Christmas inadvertently triggered a virus-like self-replicating mechanism, sending an identical copy of the original program to every name on their personal electronic mailing lists. In a matter of days, clones of the tiny program had multiplied in such profusion that they clogged the 350,000-terminal network like so many hairs in a bathtub drain...
...viruses are so playful. One particularly vicious program deletes everything stored on the computer and prints the word GOTCHA! on the screen. Another takes the form of a game called "rck.video." It delights unsuspecting users with an animation featuring the singer Madonna before erasing the files on their disks. Then it chortles, "You're stupid to download a video about rock stars...