Can viruses spread from one type of computer to another?
The simple answer is that no currently known viruses can do this. Although the disk formats may be the same (e.g. Atari ST and DOS), the different machines interpret the code differently. For example, the Stoned virus cannot infect an Atari ST as the ST cannot execute the virus code in the bootsector. The Stoned virus contains instructions for the 80×86 family of CPU’s that the 680×0-family CPU (Atari ST) can’t understand or execute. The more general answer is that such viruses are possible, but unlikely. Such a virus would be quite a bit larger than current viruses and might well be easier to find. Additionally, the low incidence of cross-machine sharing of software means that any such virus would be unlikely to spread — it would be a poor environment for virus growth.
