[Ads-l] Antedating "virus" of the computer type

[Bill Mullins]

OED has 1972, for the David Gerrold novel mentioned below.

Gregory Benford published a story in 1970 that had a computer virus in it, but it was never called that.  The program's name, however, was "VIRUS".

Seems like this should at least be a bracketed citation.



Gregory Benford, "The Scarred Man" _Venture_ 5/1970 p 128-129

"The flunkies would go in, fiddle with the machine the way Sapiro had told them, and then Sapiro would pop in, dump the program -- he called it

VIRUS -- and take off."

https://archive.org/details/Venture_v04n02_1970-05/page/n127



Background here:

http://www.gregorybenford.com/extra/the-scarred-man-returns/





> From gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG  Mon Jun 14 13:20:50 1999

> From: gbarrett at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG (Grant Barrett)

> Date: Mon, 14 Jun 1999 09:20:50 -0400

> Subject: No subject

> Message-ID: <MON.14.JUN.1999.092050.0400.GBARRETT at AMERICANDIALECT.ORG>

>

> John Markoff, writing in the New York Times about computer viruses, worms and other

> infections, claims the following:



> "The term "worm" first appeared in John Brunner's 1975 novel "Shockwave Rider" (Del

> Rey Books) while "virus" first appeared in a computer context in David Gerrold's "When

> Harley Was One" (Ballantine, 1972)."



>From http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/yr/mo/biztech/articles/14worm.html


------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org