ZX Spectrum and Viruses

Y'know, other stuff, Sinclair related.
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Ast A. Moore
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Re: ZX Spectrum and Viruses

Post by Ast A. Moore »

XTM wrote: Mon Aug 03, 2020 9:58 pm those threads by harrius where he's the only one posting, resulting in easily a dozen consecutive posts just by him!
Well, I kind of don’t mind him (on WoS, that is; I wouldn’t wish his stream of consciousness upon this forum!). He’s probably lonely and has an urge to share his thoughts, and chat about his life. Granted, a personal blog would have been a much better option.
Every man should plant a tree, build a house, and write a ZX Spectrum game.

Author of A Yankee in Iraq, a 50 fps shoot-’em-up—the first game to utilize the floating bus on the +2A/+3,
and zasm Z80 Assembler syntax highlighter.
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Pegaz
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Re: ZX Spectrum and Viruses

Post by Pegaz »

Ast A. Moore wrote: Mon Aug 03, 2020 10:54 pm
XTM wrote: Mon Aug 03, 2020 9:58 pm those threads by harrius where he's the only one posting, resulting in easily a dozen consecutive posts just by him!
Well, I kind of don’t mind him (on WoS, that is; I wouldn’t wish his stream of consciousness upon this forum!). He’s probably lonely and has an urge to share his thoughts, and chat about his life. Granted, a personal blog would have been a much better option.
I suggested this to him a long time ago on the wos forum but he didn't accept, it even seemed to me that he was offended somehow.
I don't know if he and rogerjowett are the same person, but I had more serious problems with roger about ten years ago, he trolled my youtube videos, spammed with private messages without any logical sense, mostly related to SamCoupe, which he is obsessed with.
One of the good reasons why I like sc forum is that I don't have to put up with such experiences anymore...
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Guesser
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Re: ZX Spectrum and Viruses

Post by Guesser »

He's far too sane to be Roger, and never mentions Sam Coupe video modes or dial up modems.
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PeterJ
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Re: ZX Spectrum and Viruses

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When I put Spectrum stuff on eBay I frequently get very random messages from Roger.
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R-Tape
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Re: ZX Spectrum and Viruses

Post by R-Tape »

+3code wrote: Sun Aug 02, 2020 1:38 pm After use a program, you normally reset the machine before load other, so is virtually imposible the virus propagation in that machines.
I think the idea is that the TRD viruses lived on the disks and deleted files on that disk, but not harm the machine. If so then the same should be equally possible on a +3 shouldn't it?

I've only seen things the opposite way round: I once had a divIDE that showed up a piece of malware on my speccy that my laptop couldn't see!
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Re: ZX Spectrum and Viruses

Post by +3code »

R-Tape wrote: Tue Aug 04, 2020 10:03 am
+3code wrote: Sun Aug 02, 2020 1:38 pm After use a program, you normally reset the machine before load other, so is virtually imposible the virus propagation in that machines.
I think the idea is that the TRD viruses lived on the disks and deleted files on that disk
But they can't jump to other disks if the disk interface not have an own RAM or you reset the computer...
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ketmar
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Re: ZX Spectrum and Viruses

Post by ketmar »

+3code wrote: Tue Aug 04, 2020 10:52 am
R-Tape wrote: Tue Aug 04, 2020 10:03 am I think the idea is that the TRD viruses lived on the disks and deleted files on that disk
But they can't jump to other disks if the disk interface not have an own RAM or you reset the computer...
it is slightly more intereting than that. for TR-DOS, people were often using so-called "boots" (aka simple file managers/runners) to run games from disks (just to avoid typing). most boots were universal programs, and could re-read disks by pressing some keys. so it was possible to insert one disk, run boot from there, and then use that boot to inspect other disks (while looking for a particular game, for example). this way, infected boot could "infect" other disks. still not a great danger, of course, but infector coupled with some nice-looking boot could theoretically spread.
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Re: ZX Spectrum and Viruses

Post by Nienn Heskil »

ketmar wrote: Tue Aug 04, 2020 11:10 am
+3code wrote: Tue Aug 04, 2020 10:52 am But they can't jump to other disks if the disk interface not have an own RAM or you reset the computer...
it is slightly more intereting than that. for TR-DOS, people were often using so-called "boots" (aka simple file managers/runners) to run games from disks (just to avoid typing). most boots were universal programs, and could re-read disks by pressing some keys. so it was possible to insert one disk, run boot from there, and then use that boot to inspect other disks (while looking for a particular game, for example). this way, infected boot could "infect" other disks. still not a great danger, of course, but infector coupled with some nice-looking boot could theoretically spread.
What's more, there's such a thing as 'COPY' in all disk interfaces. User copies an infected program to another disk, it then infect other programs on that disk. Then you get the same effect by further copying one of those. It still spreads, even if not entirely by itself.
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Re: ZX Spectrum and Viruses

Post by AndyC »

Yes, if you are running a program from one disk then insert another it could, theoretically, modify that second disk to propogate.

In reality though, most people just played games. And games that required a full reset to load something else. And the +3 doesn't try to load anything from disk unless you select the loader option.

So the possibility of a virus spreading is incredibly low, to the point of being impractical in all but demonstration scenarios.
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ketmar
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Re: ZX Spectrum and Viruses

Post by ketmar »

with xUSSR clones, many were modified to boot directly into TR-DOS, and TR-DOS automatically loads boot. but with +3... yeah, i think it's not as interesting as it could be. ;-)
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