Bill Gates: Control-Alt-Delete was a mistake

[Makanyaga]

[h=1]Bill Gates: Control-Alt-Delete was a mistake[/h]

Dylan Stableford, Yahoo! News 12 hours ago



Gates on Control-Alt-Delete: "Eh, it was a mistake." (Harvard/YouTube)

Bill Gates has finally admitted the puzzling Control-Alt-Delete key combination used to access the login screen on personal computers was a mistake.

"It was a mistake," Gates, co-founder and former chairman of Microsoft, said during a recent appearance at Harvard University. "We could have had a single button, but the guy who did the IBM keyboard design didn't want to give us our single button.

“You want to have something you do with the keyboard that is signaling to a very low level of the software — actually hard-coded in the hardware — that it really is bringing in the operating system you expect, instead of just a funny piece of software that puts up a screen that looks like a login screen, and then it listens to your password and then it’s able to do that,” the billionaire software mogul explained.

The odd combination was originally designed to reboot a PC, but it became part of PC folklore as a login prompt in early versions of Windows. The IBM PC that Gates helped develop was introduced in the fall of 1981.

Gates' admission came after years of debate over the origin of Control-Alt-Delete.

"Finally," Taylor Soper wrote on GeekWire.com.

In a 2001 interview marking the 20th anniversary of the IBM PC, David Bradley, the engineer who came up with the Control-Alt-Delete sequence, blamed the oddity on Gates.

"I may have invented it," Bradley said, "but Bill made it famous."

That left Gates "looking rather awkward" for more than a decade, TheVerge.com said.

In 2011, Bradley said he still didn't know why Gates used the Control-Alt-Delete for the login screen.

“Why they used it for the login also, I don’t know,” Bradley told CNET. “I guess it made sense for them.”

While Windows 8 defaults to a new login screen, the Control-Alt-Delete requirement is still used in Windows XP and Windows 7, and it still works in Windows 8 as a shortcut for locking your PC or accessing the task manager.

Source:Bill Gates: Control-Alt-Delete was a mistake

 

[bona]

why do they keep use it then..... even the latest machines still uses the combination!!

 

[Highlander]

my wild guess would be that this feature was and may still be a useful feature as a safety measure. one button would create a short to a sensititve location for every dick tom and harry i feel. i used the ctrl-alt-delete combo on several occassion with WinXP to restart the machine for whatever maintenance you need to do. that has a tendency to disturb other things you may have been doing that are unsaved. to me the triple combo is a good safety measure like the guillotine used in the printing press where you cannot cut a stack of paper without using one foot and both your hands to keep you safe from the blade. mmh! I wonder why anyone would want to think a single key to the restart screen is better!

Bill Gates: Control-Alt-Delete was a mistake







Dylan Stableford, Yahoo! News 12 hours ago



Gates on Control-Alt-Delete: "Eh, it was a mistake." (Harvard/YouTube)

Bill Gates has finally admitted the puzzling Control-Alt-Delete key combination used to access the login screen on personal computers was a mistake.

"It was a mistake," Gates, co-founder and former chairman of Microsoft, said during a recent appearance at Harvard University. "We could have had a single button, but the guy who did the IBM keyboard design didn't want to give us our single button.

“You want to have something you do with the keyboard that is signaling to a very low level of the software — actually hard-coded in the hardware — that it really is bringing in the operating system you expect, instead of just a funny piece of software that puts up a screen that looks like a login screen, and then it listens to your password and then it’s able to do that,” the billionaire software mogul explained.

The odd combination was originally designed to reboot a PC, but it became part of PC folklore as a login prompt in early versions of Windows. The IBM PC that Gates helped develop was introduced in the fall of 1981.

Gates' admission came after years of debate over the origin of Control-Alt-Delete.

"Finally," Taylor Soper wrote on GeekWire.com.

In a 2001 interview marking the 20th anniversary of the IBM PC, David Bradley, the engineer who came up with the Control-Alt-Delete sequence, blamed the oddity on Gates.

"I may have invented it," Bradley said, "but Bill made it famous."

That left Gates "looking rather awkward" for more than a decade, TheVerge.com said.

In 2011, Bradley said he still didn't know why Gates used the Control-Alt-Delete for the login screen.

“Why they used it for the login also, I don’t know,” Bradley told CNET. “I guess it made sense for them.”

While Windows 8 defaults to a new login screen, the Control-Alt-Delete requirement is still used in Windows XP and Windows 7, and it still works in Windows 8 as a shortcut for locking your PC or accessing the task manager.

Source:Bill Gates: Control-Alt-Delete was a mistake

 

[Makanyaga]

my wild guess would be that this feature was and may still be a useful feature as a safety measure. one button would create a short to a sensititve location for every dick tom and harry i feel. i used the ctrl-alt-delete combo on several occassion with WinXP to restart the machine for whatever maintenance you need to do. that has a tendency to disturb other things you may have been doing that are unsaved. to me the triple combo is a good safety measure like the guillotine used in the printing press where you cannot cut a stack of paper without using one foot and both your hands to keep you safe from the blade. mmh! I wonder why anyone would want to think a single key to the restart screen is better!

Highlander
Perhaps Bill is talking of a single key in the sense that one has to press SHIFT followed by a single key, for instance
in my keyboard I'm currently using now, If I press SFIFT+2, in that direct combination, then I get the letter "@", an output which is the same as a "single key press" , wasn't that the idea? How do you like it?

 

[Highlander]

Highlander
Perhaps Bill is talking of a single key in the sense that one has to press SHIFT followed by a single key, for instance
in my keyboard I'm currently using now, If I press SFIFT+2, in that direct combination, then I get the letter "@", an output which is the same as a "single key press" , wasn't that the idea? How do you like it?

computer programmers should be discussing this subject. it is unfortunate Jf attracts less serious thinkers. all in all, i thought the concept of a single key versus combo keys for a single key output jeorperdises safety. In that sense if your output is simply the letter "@", that output appears harmless enough and may not cause any harm to the computer. I also don't see any special use. Now that renders your combo operation a wastage of time chief. au?