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loloteheLong long ago, when Windows 95 was new and I worked for the MSN at Stream, we used to have a problem with something called "sliding BIOS".
As an experiment, if you run Windows, open a command prompt and type "debug". When you get a hyphen prompt, type "d40:0". You'll get a line that looks like this:
Those are your comm ports and the correct address for each. There's more about it on this horribly designed and difficult to read website.
Anyhoo, Windows 95 and DOS never really got along when it came to ports and addresses. Occasionally, you'd see the address for one port in another's slot, like so:
And that's called "sliding BIOS".
We saw it because of external modems connected to the serial port. It was the easiest to diagnose and it also meant that we could get the caller off the phone more quickly because they would need a BIOS update from the computer manufacturer.
Fast-forward three years and I was working for Software Spectrum. SS also handled Mcafee and they would frequently get calls from Gateway users about some kind of BIOS-level virus.
What Gateway techs were doing was going into debug and telling users they had a virus no matter what debug said. It was used to explain a plethora of issues. These calls became known as "the Gateway virus".
So, these days, I watch politics, hear some outlandish lies, and think, "That's a Gateway virus." It's the exact same though process at work.
As an experiment, if you run Windows, open a command prompt and type "debug". When you get a hyphen prompt, type "d40:0". You'll get a line that looks like this:
F8 O3 F8 02 E8 03 E8 02
Those are your comm ports and the correct address for each. There's more about it on this horribly designed and difficult to read website.
Anyhoo, Windows 95 and DOS never really got along when it came to ports and addresses. Occasionally, you'd see the address for one port in another's slot, like so:
F8 O3 E8 03 00 00 E8 02
And that's called "sliding BIOS".
We saw it because of external modems connected to the serial port. It was the easiest to diagnose and it also meant that we could get the caller off the phone more quickly because they would need a BIOS update from the computer manufacturer.
Fast-forward three years and I was working for Software Spectrum. SS also handled Mcafee and they would frequently get calls from Gateway users about some kind of BIOS-level virus.
What Gateway techs were doing was going into debug and telling users they had a virus no matter what debug said. It was used to explain a plethora of issues. These calls became known as "the Gateway virus".
So, these days, I watch politics, hear some outlandish lies, and think, "That's a Gateway virus." It's the exact same though process at work.
