Talk:Apple Worm

Claims

The best way to verify the claim of primacy versus publication date within Scientific American will require the physical reviewing of all issues prior to May, 1985. William R. Buckley (talk) 17:24, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Variations of this work was published in the November 1986 issue (cover story, actually) of the magazine Call_A.P.P.L.E. which is the official publication of the Apple Puget Sound Program Library Exchange. There is also to be found a version of this software written for the x86 processor, which is printed in a circa 1987-1990 issue of ASCII Magazine, a variation on Byte Magazine, but for the Japanese market.

Scientific American

Shouldn't the reference be to the March 1985 issue. Has anyone got access to the original to double check? 217.171.129.77 (talk) 21:16, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

You may be correct on the month of the SciAm issue; I do sometimes get these dates confused. William R. Buckley (talk) 23:03, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I have since verified the month, and made the appropriate correction. William R. Buckley (talk) 12:55, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Notability

I've added the URL to the 1985 article mentioned (please check it's the right one) but I don't think this topic satisfies the notability guideline that "a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources". The mention of the Apple Worm is only a few sentences, a small proportion of the article. And there's only a single source. Are there some other sources to support the inclusion of this topic in wikipedia? Ferkel (talk) 09:47, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

The URL is correct. William R. Buckley (talk) 02:17, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

As mentioned under another title on this talk page, similar programs are mentioned in a variety of contexts. Dr. Dobb's journal ca. 1986 included presentation of a similar program, which was described as useful for a memory purge. The Apple Worm is simply one example of a memory-bound self-replicator which moves about in the main memory of a computer. The notability of such programs is their behavior, and the multiplicity of examples that one may find within the literature, should one take time to look. When I created the article, I was careful not to include hyperbole; to the best ability, the article includes only fact about such programs. My hope is that other examples are added, and that the particular example of the Apple Worm not dominate the topic; much more important is the dynamic behavior of such programs. Also, you will note that this article links back to the discussion of self-relocation, which was the reason for inclusion in the first place; as an example of a program that engages in self-relocation. William R. Buckley (talk) 20:09, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

If there has been significant coverage of 'self-relocating' programs in general then that is reason to keep the self-relocation page, not this one. Without significant coverage of the Apple Worm itself I'll propose this page for deletion. If we can find some sources with significant coverage then of course we should keep this page. Ferkel (talk) 23:22, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Do as you like. It really matters little to me. Just remember, others did the same thing with regard to partial construction, and yet the topic endures. William R. Buckley (talk) 02:51, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

It is mentioned in only two published papers, both authored by me. Do you find that sufficient reason to excise *partial construction* from the article Self-Replicating Machine? William R. Buckley (talk) 00:45, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

As I've commented on the talk page for article self-relocation, the Apple Worm is just an example of this kind of behavior. The topic is important to the article Core War, and the behavior of dynamic self-relocation is commonly employed in the *warrior* programs inherent to game play. Hence, at minimum, self-relocation constitutes a fundamental feature of the topic of another Wikipedia article. Other examples include a notorious *move* instruction on a PDP computer (not sure if it was a 6, 8, 9, 10, or 11) which caused an auto-decrement of the program counter, and copied the instruction code word into the previous memory location - a memory-bound worm moving from high memory addresses to low memory addresses. William R. Buckley (talk) 00:37, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Other references are:

"Hobnobbing with the Hyper Hacker, about Worms" in ASCII Magazine, 13(3) 265-271. This worm is coded for the Intel 8088 microprocessor.

"Simple Worms" in Call-A.P.P.L.E. Magazine, 9(11) 12-17. This is the cover story of the November 1986 issue. The worm(s) presented are coded for the 6502 microprocessor. It also constitutes the published content of my undergraduate research project at CalPoly SLO; BS in Physical Science. The article was co-authored with James R. Hauser.

I wrote a series of articles for ASCII Magazine beginning in late 1987, IIRC. They published a total of ten Hyper Hacker columns, and two other papers, all attributed to William R. Buckley. I should add that ASCII Magazine is a rough Japanese analog of Byte Magazine (as found here in the US). William R. Buckley (talk) 01:43, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I see no reason why specific examples of some otherwise described behavior (articles in Wikipedia) should not themselves be afforded a specific article. If it happens that incorporation of examples within the self-relocation page is better supported by other editors, then by all means move the examples to a subsection in the larger article. William R. Buckley (talk) 00:42, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I deprodded it, for I thought it merited some discussion. I am not the least sure whether it is notable itself--it could be, as prominent example--certainly the place it was published is as prominent as one can get. The way to find that out would be at AfD, where the opinion of the broader community can be asked. But even if it might possibly be worth a separate article, that doesn't mean it necessarily must have one if the information can better be contained in a larger article, with a redirect. so I think its a question of whether or not to merge, & it's a matter of judgment,--I think either way would be fine, though its not my subject really.DGG (talk) 22:51, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

All other editors should understand that I really don't have a vested interest in how the information is presented; just a concern that it does get presented. I started out with a separate article for partial construction. Other editors merged the article with the Self-Replicating Machine article. However others think that incorporation into Wikipedia is best served, that is fine with me. It is facts and information that I care about; truth is my standard. Verifiability I leave to others, and I don't quibble with the details of presentation. Just the content. Thanks for your help. William R. Buckley (talk) 00:21, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Additional Examples

There is mention of one other example within the publicly available literature, and it is printed within an issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal, from 1985 or 1986. It would be nice to find the details of that reference. As I recall, the program is unidirectional (the Apple Worm is bidirectional, and switches direction in response to stimulation, in the form of memory content), and was cited as a means to clear memory, much in the fashion of the PDP-11 instruction (which is mentioned in the article text). William R. Buckley (talk) 12:53, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Here's the reference - Jan W Steinman, "The Worm Memory Test", DDJ September 1986. Reprinted in Dr Dobb's Toolbook of 68000 Programming. 87.113.67.177 (talk) 22:46, 17 October 2013 (UTC)