An example could be an infected word document which requires Visual Basic scripting to cause the agent to run won't work on the Mac version of Microsoft Office. However, the "DNA" of the infection will stay in the file harmlessly until such time as it is transported to a PC and opened within the Windows version of Microsoft Office, which does have the scripting language available.

It is true that most of the drive-by attempted infections will fail, as do most biological attempted infections by viruses when they land on the wrong host.

It's actually the wrong terminology.

The Mac system has been contaminated with the Windows virus, which, to use the "viral" analogue, doesn't have the correct DNA to infect the host.

In the same way that a farmer which has been handling sheep with Foot and Mouth disease can become contaminated and pass the infection onto another sheep the Macs which have been contaminated with the disease can potentially pass the infection on, especially if it's infected Microsoft Office documents.

You mean like "Removing a photo briskly off a table using your finger tips, but on a computer"? ;-)

It's different horses for different courses.

Teletext, by definition, is a broadcast medium, the web interactive. Sometimes you just "want the facts Ma'am" in a simple manner, sometimes you want something you can interact with and have flashy graphics.

How's about?

> LOAD "MYPROG"
Brrrrrrrrr
Click-click-click-click-click-click-click clunk
Brrrrrrrrr, brrrrrrrr. clunk
Brrrrrrrrr, brrrrrrrr. clunk
Brrrrrrrrr, brrrrrrrr. clunk

Well, my only comment on how modern, high-speed equipment is slower:

Time to boot into a usable state to start programming:

BBC Micro: 2 seconds.
Dual, quad-core Xeon processor PC running Windows 7: 2 minutes. ;-)

The new service's "page numbers" are not consistent in any way, however, which is why I said "the only reasonable way to navigate to pages is via a deep menu system of pages".

It is true that many of them are similar to the old Ceefax numbers, however, the system only seems to have numbers for the index pages for sections rather than sub-pages. It's also a darn more tedious system to use.

As for speed, you may see a comment to another comment made above, I've used lots of equipment and it's all seemed just as cumbersome. This is Freeview and Freesat and low and high end equipment.

Other than the usability design issues and the speed, I do miss the comprehensiveness of the old service. The web system is not an ideal replacement as it requires me to change to a different device, possibly even boot it up and wait for that. (Oh, and the usability of the BBC's web site is poor as well. Style over content rules.)

I've tried using the new text service on a number of systems, both low-end and high-end and both Freeview and Freesat. They're all as tardy.

Indeed, early teletext was pretty slow (but it was fun watching the page numbers fly by at the top right of the screen). However, with the advent of the "Fastext" page caching system, the initial page was fast enough and far faster than the new system. (And I do remember the original implementation too, having played with a teletext TV in the local library when the service first started in the mid-'70s.

The most unfortunate part of the whole affair is that the "more advanced" digital service which is replacing the old teletext system is actually less useful and feels slower than what it replaces.

The old system may have been text only (except for some block colour "graphics") and take a while for each page to be transmitted but it was clear and easy to read. Also, the art of providing content in the limited text space available had become an art and hence the content itself was good.

The new system which replaces it take an age to start up (up to a minute) as opposed to the almost instant teletext system and because it only uses the right-hand third of the screen to display in (most of the time) has less space for information. If you add to this the fact that the only reasonable way to navigate to pages is via a deep menu system of pages (each page taking up to 30 seconds to load), rather than being able to memorise a three digit number for the page, it becomes too painful to actually use at all.