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In the Wikipedia entry for the original 1973 Westworld it mentions the computer scientist scoffing at the idea of 'an infectious virus that affects computers'.

Is there an earlier than this sci fi work (novel or film etc) that mentions a virus that only infects computers?

Extract from the Wikipedia​ entry:

The technicians running Delos notice problems beginning to spread like an infection among the androids: the robots in Romanworld and Medievalworld begin experiencing an increasing number of breakdowns and systemic failures, which are said to have spread to Westworld.

When one of the supervising computer scientists scoffs at the "analogy of an infectious disease," he is told by the chief supervisor "We aren't dealing with ordinary machines here. These are highly complicated pieces of equipment, almost as complicated as living organisms. In some cases, they've been designed by other computers. We don't know exactly how they work."

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    Not an answer: The possibility of self-replicating programs was identified in 1949 by John von Neumann, and the first virus identified in the wild was the Creeper virus in 1971. Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_virus – cryptarch Jan 19 '19 at 3:16
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    So, assuming that the Westworld of 1973 was set some time in the future of 1973, it seems a little short-sighted to have had a computer scientist in that future scoffing about something that had already been pioneered a year before the script for the original Westworld had even been written (in 1972) :D – cryptarch Jan 19 '19 at 3:19
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    Based on the synopsis, though, the Westworld "disease" doesn't seem to have been deliberately designed, which makes it fundamentally different to a computer virus. Also, unless the androids had some sort of Wi-Fi equivalent (?) there would be no way for a computer virus to spread, so I'm not sure that's what the writers had in mind. – Harry Johnston Jan 19 '19 at 4:32
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    I've taken the liberty to edit your question a bit with the "first instance of" tweak so that it doesn't fall under too broad. Hope you don't mind :) – Jenayah Jan 19 '19 at 10:41
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    @cryptarch - " it seems a little short-sighted to have had a computer scientist in that future scoffing about something that had already been pioneered a year before" - Only if you think that Michael Crichton was well-read in the literature of the field and kept current with new developments. And since the term "computer virus" as we know it was only invented in 1985, it does seem rather demanding to require Crichton to be clairvoyant. – WhatRoughBeast Jan 19 '19 at 23:26
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I'm not aware of an earlier work.

As Wikipedia notes in its article on the great British SF writer John Brunner (1934-1995), “Brunner is credited with coining the term 'worm' and predicting the emergence of computer viruses in his 1975 novel The Shockwave Rider, in which he used the term to describe software which reproduces itself across a computer network.”

The Shockwave Rider was impressively ahead of its time and has been described as a precursor to William Gibson's Neuromancer and the cyberpunk movement it inspired.

John Brunner was a writer of remarkable versatility, ambition, and skill who deserves to be better remembered. His death at only 60 years of age was a tragedy for the SF field.

John Brunner, novelist

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  • Well, then it's hardly an answer if you mention sth made later then what OP mentions. – Mithoron Jan 24 '19 at 16:43

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