terms "worm, virus, infect" (Was: Re: KLEZ)

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Tue, Aug 20, 2002 at 12:10:17PM -0400, Philip Trauring wrote:
>
> Just to keep things on topic, what's the first known usages of the
> words virus, worm and infect in relation to computers?

_worm_ was pretty famously coined by John Brunner in _Shockwave
Rider_ in 1975, so I assume that means that Barry will provide
an example from Datamation in 1959 or so. _virus_ is found in
the early 1970s (and is also in _Shockwave Rider_), and _infect_
doesn't seem to have been researched yet but we have some
mid-1980s cites sitting around.

Jesse Sheidlower
OED