At 10:57 AM 12/12/02 -0600, REED GRANT wrote:
tflanReed is absolutely correct about what software CAN do. He's overly optimistic about what it CANNOT do.
You are correct that software cannot damage hardware but it can "crash" a system. I am using the term crash literally because viruses can and do crash programs to the point that even operating system are not even recognized on boot up. I have seen many people replace hard drives because they thought that they were damaged when all they had to do was reformat and reload OS. Sorry if I mislead you.
reed
I don't know of any software-vulnerable hardware today, but I can think of several cases in the past where a program could damage hardware.
(1) The first couple of years of the IBM-PC (say, 1981-84), the monochrome monitor required continuous BIOS assistance to run its sweep circuitry. (The BIOS is the device-driver program.) Turned out that at one very slow sweep frequency (much too low to be useful for display), the sweep transformer built up way too much current, and the monitor turned into a blue-smoke generator. Of course, your display would lose sync several seconds before it burned itself up. Anyway, here's a case where deliberately -- or, too often, accidentally -- malicious software could destroy hardware.
(2) In the '60s, a military computer had an interesting security feature that proved to be its undoing. It didn't take long for a program to find the "continuous loop" path. But even shutting it off and restarting it didn't "cut the loop" (that damned security feature). It took surgery on one of the circuit boards (like with a soldering iron) to fix it.
(3) Before the 1980s, disk drives were physically BIG, separate units. A typical disk storage for a mainframe might be a box the size of a washing machine, and every bit as heavy. Even the arms that carried the read-write heads were heavy. Back then, it was sort of a rite of passage for programmers to write a program that would move the heads in synchronism to shift the weight back and forth rhythmically, in such a way as to make the unit "walk" across the floor. (Well, actually it sort of shuffled.) Since computer centers were (still are) based on raised floors in the machine room, a walk in the wrong direction could send it tumbling off the raised floor and damage some hardware.
Not golf, but somewhat amusing. (To me, anyway.)
Cheers!
DaveT
