The Guy Responsible For Ctrl-Alt-Del

Er, that's a bit much.... by tcopeland · 2003-09-30 03:50 · Score: 4, Insightful

....from the article:

> He's much too modest. Would Alexander Fleming
> have said, "It wasn't a memorable event," when
> he discovered penicillin?

Crikey.

--
The Army reading list

Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by NaugaHunter · 2003-09-30 03:57 · Score: 5, Funny

The author's comparing reseting a dead Windows computer with penicillin. Isn't penicillin used on unwanted infestations of bacteria? Not that far off, if you ask me.

--
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Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by jason0000042 · 2003-09-30 04:05 · Score: 5, Insightful

The author's comparing reseting a dead Windows computer with penicillin. Isn't penicillin used on unwanted infestations of bacteria? Not that far off, if you ask me.

But CTRL-ALT-DELETE wasn't discovered, as the article states. It was developed. Bradley made it up. Comparing it to the discovery of penicillin is like saying Tolkien discovered the lord of the rings.

--
i don't like my old sig.
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:09 · Score: 1, Insightful

IT'S A JOKE!

you idiot.

crikey.
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by Mephie · 2003-09-30 04:19 · Score: 5, Interesting

Honestly, though, he is modest. The IBM Campus in Raleigh had a career builder seminar once that he attended. He actually showed a video where he was speaking at a small conference where Bill Gates was in attendence.
On the video, someone made a comment about Ctrl-Alt-Del being a life saver as an easy way to reboot systems after a crash (back when the blue screen stayed up by default). His response was "I just coded the Ctrl-Alt-Del sequence. Bill Gates made it famous." The implication wasn't intentional, but the look on Bill's face was priceless.

--
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Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:30 · Score: 0

Ahhh, but penicillian is used to make live bacteria dead and ctl-alt-del is used to make a dead bacterial OS come back to life. Major difference!!
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:40 · Score: 5, Funny

Well, with Pi being proved as infinite and non-repeating, then Lord of the Rings was actually sitting there encoded in Pi forever and would have been sitting there un-discovered had it not been for Tolkien finding it.
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by theperplepigg · 2003-09-30 04:46 · Score: 1

Actually, if I remember from a Tolkien biography, that was half the charm of it. In interviews, Tolkien didn't act/say he made up middleearth, but that it was 'Discovered' by him, as if it were some lost piece of history.

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-- Every time you kill a kitten, God masturbates.
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by iCat · 2003-09-30 04:55 · Score: 1

I find it is very interesting to note that an industry continues to support CTRL ALT DELETE as a 'useful feature' despite the fact that:

- It is essentially a meaningless sequence of keystrokes

- It alienates end users from a technology that is supposed to make life easier

- It requires the use of two hands
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:56 · Score: 0

Comparing it to the discovery of penicillin is like saying Tolkien discovered the lord of the rings.
You mean he didn't? Dammit!
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by geggibus · 2003-09-30 05:02 · Score: 1

Two hands?
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by MadocGwyn · 2003-09-30 05:03 · Score: 2, Insightful

Actually on most keyboards there are ctrl+alt keys on both sides of the keyboard, most of us are just used to left hand doing the ctrl alt, it can easily be done with the right hand on the right hand ctrl+alt keys.
Go ahead, try it twice quickly

--
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Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by li99sh79 · 2003-09-30 05:03 · Score: 1

- It requires the use of two hands
You must have small hands or only one set of control and alt keys because I can hit control-alt-delete with one hand easy. :)
Here, let me try it kn...
-sam

--
I was just here, where did I go?
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by drinkypoo · 2003-09-30 05:12 · Score: 1

Microsoft actually has an infographic to show users how to press ctrl-alt-del. It shows the user using one hand, on the right hand side of the alpha keys. I press alt with my thumb, control with the side of my pinky, and del with my ring finger.
The middle finger would be more appropriate, but my hand doesn't naturally bend that way...

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by dillon_rinker · 2003-09-30 05:13 · Score: 2, Insightful

You don't need pi, a transcendental number that requires calculus-level mathematics to construct. All you need are the integers. Convert LOTR to an integer, then count until you reach it. Presto! You've rediscovered LOTR! Simple enough for a child to understand.
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by ashitaka · 2003-09-30 05:16 · Score: 3, Insightful

You point out one of the blind spots that many of us have through training. As others have shown, there are in fact CTRL and ALT keys on the right side of the keyboard as well.

At some point it may have been easy to hit both and then the DEL key in the group-of-six but with a Windows and Menu key in between the CTRL and ALT on my Dell keyboard it requires an uncomfortable stretching of thumb, curling of index finger and reach with my middle finger to hit the sequence.

Much easier to use the good old left ring finger, left index finger, right index finger combination, espeiclaly when you can slam the right finger down with the appropriate disgust at your crappy OS dying again.

--
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:18 · Score: 1, Offtopic
I would like to point out that your joke was blown for two simultaneous, yet unrelated, reasons:
1. Presumably, the partial word at the end of your sentence is supposed to be "now". The spelling error doesn't prevent understanding the joke, but causes the reader to pause for a moment, which ruins the delivery. D-
2. Including the ellipsis, followed by the manual signature "-sam" at the end shatters the illusion that your connection was broken by a reboot. In the event of a real disconnect, of course, the comment would never have been posted, but that's a suspension of disbelief that myself and other Slashdot readers are prepared to accept. The signature, though, is just too much. F
Thanks for trying, and better luck next time.
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:27 · Score: 0

"... as if it were some lost piece of history"

You mean it isn't? Noooooooo.......!
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · 2003-09-30 05:28 · Score: 1

No, he did it for DOS. Its like Windows, but without graphics or multitasking. It doesn't restart windows computers. Am I being too anal? I'm not sure. Its just a pet peeve of mine. I hate it when people call old things by the more recent terminology. Like when kids call The Beetles white album the best cd of the 60's.

--
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:31 · Score: 0

Wow, that sure is an uncomfortable way to do it.

What works for me is thumb on ALT, middle finger on DEL, and pinky on CTRL
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by Jon+Shaft · 2003-09-30 05:32 · Score: 5, Informative

You can see the video here. My apologies for the crappy news.com link.

--
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Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:32 · Score: 0

You mean there were computers without graphics or multitasking? Gosh!
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by the_duke_of_hazzard · 2003-09-30 05:38 · Score: 1

"He also says he chose those keys specifically as it's not a key sequence that can be struck by accident."
No! Really? Wow. What an insight.
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by iCat · 2003-09-30 05:43 · Score: 1

Guys/Gals,

One of my points is still valid:

It is essentially a meaningless sequence of keystrokes

What do you think?
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:52 · Score: 0

Jeez... Talk about no sense humour.
I didn't think it was possible, but I like Billy Gates even less now.
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by Johnny5000 · 2003-09-30 05:54 · Score: 4, Funny

"Including the ellipsis, followed by the manual signature "-sam" at the end shatters the illusion that your connection was broken by a reboot. "

Maybe he was dictating?

--
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Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by -stax · 2003-09-30 05:55 · Score: 1

And I hate when people spell The Beatles the band like Beetles the bugs.
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · 2003-09-30 05:59 · Score: 1

Yeah, somepeople aren't very good at picking up SARCASAM. Are they?

--
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Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by sharkey · 2003-09-30 06:09 · Score: 1

Oww, that hurts. I use ALT-thumb, CRTL-index and DEL-middle, of course.

--

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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by landaker · 2003-09-30 06:10 · Score: 5, Funny

Convert LOTR to an integer, then count until you reach it.
Actually, the other day I was generating some really large numbers to look for potential large primes, when I saw a number that struck me as interesting, so I converted the number to binary and dumped it out in a binary file...
Then just yesterday, when trying to do some directory maintenence, I accidentally mistyped a command line and ended up calling perl on the binary file mentioned above. Well, you'd figure that would just give me garbage and die... but to my great surprise, it turns out that that number ended up being identical to a bzip2-compressed stream embedded in a perl script with self-extaction code.
Anyway, to make a long story short, it ended up spitting out the complete LOTR trilogy, nicely formatted in docbook SGML. Sadly, there were some typos, a few dangling reference sto some artwork that I don't have, and oddly enough, it wrote everything into my .gnupg/ directory as files named "bert.smgl", "ernie.sgml", and "bzgbir3.smgl"[sic], so I guess I'll just have to keep looking for interesting numbers and maybe I'll discover a version without these problems.
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by li99sh79 · 2003-09-30 06:11 · Score: 1

you forgot one, and it's pretty obvious actually:
3. if my computer rebooted at that point the post wouldn't show up because i wouldn't have hit the "submit" button yet.
thanks for trying, better luck next time.
-sam

--
I was just here, where did I go?
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by drinkypoo · 2003-09-30 06:13 · Score: 1

I have very large hands. I type with only two or three fingers on each hand at once most times, with the pinkies reserved for modifier keys, and right thumb working the space bar... most of the time. I can pick up most keyboards with my pinkies, while my thumbs are touching... Can't quite do it with this G3-el-capitan lookalike with a USB hub built into it, though. It's got a lot of extra plastic, and it's pretty heavy.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by jemfinch · 2003-09-30 06:17 · Score: 1

Comparing it to the discovery of penicillin is like saying Tolkien discovered the lord of the rings.

Tolkien himself would say that he was merely a discoverer of Middle-earth. Perhaps there's a comparison here...

Jeremy

--
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Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by jazman_777 · 2003-09-30 06:24 · Score: 2, Insightful

Guys/Gals, One of my points is still valid: It is essentially a meaningless sequence of keystrokes What do you think?
You are wrong. Ctl-Alt-Del is fraught with meaning. In fact, David Bradley first gave it meaning.

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Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by Spam+Bandito · 2003-09-30 06:25 · Score: 1

Comparing it to the discovery of penicillin is like saying Tolkien discovered the lord of the rings.

But he did, didn't he? I mean, The Lord of the Rings was adapted from the Red Book, which was written by Bilbo. Right?

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Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 06:32 · Score: 0

Not even. The CTRL-ALT-DEL combo is nothing more than an evolved, highly popular, debug shortcut (and I hestitate even calling it that).
Many things have had an functional equivalent both before and after the "discovery" of this key combination.

A giant "puh-leeze!".

This article was total pap.
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by ayjay29 · 2003-09-30 06:49 · Score: 1

I agree, good job there is no Nobel Prize for Techies.

The nomainations are:
(o) Gilbert van Nork for his "Spider Case" modification.
(o) David Bradley for the "Ctrl-Alt-Delete" key combination.
(o) Trevor Blackwell for his home made Segway.
(o) Cowboy Neil.

Cast your votes.

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Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by fucksl4shd0t · 2003-09-30 06:49 · Score: 1

Maybe he was dictating?
Ok, I don't remember the next line, but good job with the python there. :)

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Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by Xenoproctologist · 2003-09-30 06:50 · Score: 2, Funny

I used to use my middle finger when I had to ctrl-alt-del a locked computer, but it certainly wan't to press a key...
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by mantera · 2003-09-30 06:53 · Score: 1

His response was "I just coded the Ctrl-Alt-Del sequence. Bill Gates made it famous." The implication wasn't intentional, but the look on Bill's face was priceless.
haha i just got the joke; i've known about this for a couple of years or so but i didn't realize what "the implication" was in that. It means that windows crashes so often that ctrl-alt-delete bacame so necessary and famously used.
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 06:58 · Score: 0

if he was dying he wouldn't bother carving out AAAAAA.. he'd just say it
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by sharkey · 2003-09-30 07:08 · Score: 1

I can pick up most keyboards with my pinkies, while my thumbs are touching...
Those are some big frickin' hands. After some thought, you must use your left hand for this. Using the right is just painful the way you describe.

--

--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by 555-5555 · 2003-09-30 07:36 · Score: 0, Offtopic

and thank god that some lucky dust particle found some way to create an entire universe out of itself this conversation is getting pretty far fetched not to mention off topic but that is what makes slashdot slashdot
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 07:38 · Score: 0

Nothing gets by you, eh?
Re: Er, that's a bit much.... by gidds · 2003-09-30 07:40 · Score: 2, Informative

Nice idea, but far from true, I'm afraid. An infinite non-repeating number need not include every possible combination. For example, here's an infinite non-repeating decimal number that doesn't include any combination with the digits '2' to '9':
1.101001000100001000001...

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Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by phoenix_rizzen · 2003-09-30 07:45 · Score: 1

Strange that you use your whole hand for that manoeuver. My thumb presses CTRL, my index finger (curled under my palm) presses ALT, and my middle finger presses Delete. It's actually quit comfortable, and doesn't require any bending of the hand.
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by mantera · 2003-09-30 07:47 · Score: 1

well i had read about it before in news and now that i've seen the video and that i saw how bill gates reacted i get the joke.
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by drinkypoo · 2003-09-30 07:58 · Score: 1

Okay I hooked up my camcorder for you, I hope you appreciate it :)

Control Alt Delete

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by drinkypoo · 2003-09-30 08:00 · Score: 2, Funny

Judging by your handle, it was to penetrate an alien's rectum.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by Prof.Phreak · 2003-09-30 08:11 · Score: 1

Well, with Pi being proved as infinite and non-repeating, then Lord of the Rings was actually sitting there encoded in Pi forever and would have been sitting there un-discovered had it not been for Tolkien finding it.

I wonder if SCO can claim to own Pi then...

--
"If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by Bill,+Shooter+of+Bul · 2003-09-30 08:20 · Score: 1

Yeah, I hate it when people do that. What morons!. *punches self in face*

--
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by EvilAlien · 2003-09-30 08:24 · Score: 1

If you ask a Jungian psychologist, they might say that Tolkien discovered the Lord of the Rings. Those crazy bastards like to strip individuals of their creativity and write it off to some mere expression of an archetype ;)

--
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Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by li99sh79 · 2003-09-30 08:30 · Score: 1

What I find is an interesting exercise is to read all AC posts as coming from the same person. It makes for a person who probably comes close to the mental state required to post anonymous flames on slashdot. :)
-sam

--
I was just here, where did I go?
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 08:30 · Score: 0

That's nothing, when I play pool I rack with five balls at a time, per hand.
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by Simonetta · 2003-09-30 08:38 · Score: 1

When I was designing printed circuit boards in the late 1980's, we always used to joke that OrCAD meant: Often Required Control-Alt-Delete.

OrCAD PCB version 1 really deserved that joke, but version 2 was much more stable. I've heard that later versions are even better but I still use OrCAD version 2. It runs as fast as hell with a 2GHz box and I've finally learned how to get it to do what I want it to. Why switch?
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 08:57 · Score: 0

You point out one of the blind spots that many of us have through training. As others have shown, there are in fact CTRL and ALT keys on the right side of the keyboard as well.

Early AT keyboards (the 88 or so key ones) only had one ctrl (next to the 'a' key where it belongs, dag-nabit!) and one alt. CapsLock was where the left ctrl is now. All these keys fit quite nicely on my Type M clacky as well
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by sharkey · 2003-09-30 09:12 · Score: 1

Okay I hooked up my camcorder for you, I hope you appreciate it :)
I surely do. That hurts my hand to twist and stretch it in that way. But then, I have dainty little mitts, apparently. Is that how MS recommends it be done?

--

--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 09:16 · Score: 0

Left thumb on right alt
left index on right shift
left middle on del
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by FCP · 2003-09-30 09:45 · Score: 1

I'm sure this is !intentional (heh) but on my Compaq keyboard at work, it is quite possible
to extend right thumb and right middle finger, fold the rest of them down, and hit the
3-finger salute configured as a bird.

It's not the MOST comfortable way, but sometimes symbolism is worth a little discomfort.

There really needs to be a shortcut for Windows XP users, though.

--
.plan: file not found
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by drinkypoo · 2003-09-30 09:47 · Score: 1

I don't think so, but I could be wrong. It's certainly the way that comes naturally to me.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 10:26 · Score: 0

Especially since it's not really an innovation... you know... ctrl-reset on the APPLE, which are far more useful.
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 10:38 · Score: 0

Damn, I'm missing just under 2 inches to be able to pick up a regular non-split/non-ergo keyboard with my pinkies, and thumbs touching. And I have pretty big hands.
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 11:31 · Score: 0

Dude, this is probably the funniest /. comment I have ever read ;-)
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 11:33 · Score: 0

Dude, you lost - go figure. Oh, yeah, they are all the same! :)
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 11:43 · Score: 0

"bert.smgl"

Does that stand for bert.smeagol?
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by Wolfrider · 2003-09-30 12:20 · Score: 1

Kinda reminds me of the old gun quote:
"God made man, Sam Colt made them equal."

http://members.tripod.com/delorenzo-frank/armory .h tml

--
.
== WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by sk8king · 2003-09-30 12:32 · Score: 1

Me too. Just like depressing both control keys concurrently with the same hand [thumb and pinky....its a stretch]
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by Theodore+Logan · 2003-09-30 12:54 · Score: 0, Redundant

Well, with Pi being proved as infinite and non-repeating, then Lord of the Rings was actually sitting there encoded in Pi forever and would have been sitting there un-discovered had it not been for Tolkien finding it.

Nope. A number which contains every k-digit string equally often (in the asymptotic sense) is said to be normal. Whether or not pi is normal is not known (although most mathematicians suspect that to be the case). Thus it is not certain that pi contains LotR.

But even if it was known that pi was normal, in what sense could Tolkien be said to have found LotR in pi? Presumably, he could not provide us with the offset. And thus he would only know that it was in there somewhere, but not having found it anymore than anybody else.

Silly remark, of course. But your post was just as silly, so I would assume it to be warranted.

--
"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance" - Derek Bok
Re: Er, that's a bit much.... by dvdeug · 2003-09-30 13:16 · Score: 1

An infinite non-repeating number need not include every possible combination.

But pi probably does include every possible combination. It's believed to be random at that level.
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 13:47 · Score: 0

So why is it, with all that power and money, that geeks remain unpopular?
Re: Er, that's a bit much.... by tunah · 2003-09-30 15:09 · Score: 1

An infinite non-repeating number need not include every possible combination.
True. However it's likely, but unproven, that pi is a normal number.

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Re: Er, that's a bit much.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 17:54 · Score: 0

I don't suppose you know binary then :-D
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by Zixia · 2003-09-30 19:19 · Score: 1

Much easier to use the good old left ring finger, left index finger, right index finger combination, espeiclaly when you can slam the right finger down with the appropriate disgust at your crappy OS dying again.

Why slam only your right finger down on the DEL key when so much more venom can be shown with a clenched fist?
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by zby · 2003-09-30 20:44 · Score: 1

The conclusion is not right. An infinit non-repeating sequence of numbers does not have to containt some predefined subsequence.
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by PDAllen · 2003-09-30 21:19 · Score: 1

If you look at pi then choose your decoding to get LoTR, then you will find it 'encoded'. Otherwise, you probably won't. pi is known to be transcendental. This does not imply that you can find whatever you want in it. 0.110001000000000000000001000.... = sum[n=1,inf] (10^-n!) is also transcendental; but I don't think you'll find any currently-used coding which can get LoTR back out of it. pi is certainly a more interesting transcendental number than the above, though, and there have been suggestions that maybe you can find any given string of digits in pi if you look far enough along. However AFAIK no such suggestion has been proved.
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by WowTIP · 2003-09-30 23:38 · Score: 1

Cool idea, something like this, then?

ctrlaltdel.jpg

--

--

"I'm surfin the dead zone
In the twilight, unknown"
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-10-01 00:59 · Score: 0

Your music is shockingly bad. Well, mainly the vocals.
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by squidreplicator · 2003-10-01 02:08 · Score: 1

I have a zipping system that compresses data by finding any string that matches the whole of the LOTR text and replaces it with the string "3.14159".
Re:Er, that's a bit much.... by fucksl4shd0t · 2003-10-01 06:45 · Score: 1

Your music is shockingly bad. Well, mainly the vocals.
Dammit, Jim, I'm a guitar player, not a singer!

--
Like what I said? You might like my music

in honouration... by smurphette · 2003-09-30 03:51 · Score: 0, Redundant

I three-finger salute you!

Patent madness? by grasshoppa · 2003-09-30 03:51 · Score: 5, Funny

Just imagine how much in royalties this guy could have made if he had developed that nowadays with our patent frenzy attitude!

Rich, he would have been rich I tell you!

--
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Re:Patent madness? by Short+Circuit · 2003-09-30 03:54 · Score: 1

Sure, but who would have adopted it over what we'd already be using? That's one of the downsides of patent frenzy.

--
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Re:Patent madness? by psychogentoo · 2003-09-30 03:56 · Score: 1, Funny

For $600, SCO will sell you a license to use 'ctrl-alt-del'.
Re:Patent madness? by Zeinfeld · 2003-09-30 04:02 · Score: 2, Insightful

Just imagine how much in royalties this guy could have made if he had developed that nowadays with our patent frenzy attitude!
Err Apple had the prior art. If you look at any Apple ][ of the original series you will almost always find that there has been an after market add on to cover up the reset key which was placed in a ludicrously easy to hit by mistake location.
The only thing novel about ctrl-alt-del was that it was in the original hardware rather than an after market kludge. There were similar hacks on the PET, only there you could switch the reset off as it was a maskable interupt.
The later use came about because it is the only sequence that cannot be hijacked.

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Re:Patent madness? by stevesliva · 2003-09-30 04:04 · Score: 1

He does have some patents. Like this one about interrupt sharing.

--
Who do you get to be an expert to tell you something's not obvious? The least insightful person you can find? -J Roberts
Re:Patent madness? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:04 · Score: 0

If you look at any Apple ][ of the original series you will almost always find that there has been an after market add on to cover up the reset key which was placed in a ludicrously easy to hit by mistake location.

Not an aftermarket add-on. A slide switch on the edge of the keyboard PCB allowed you to choose Reset or Ctrl-Reset.

Woz Still Is.
Re:Patent madness? by nullard · 2003-09-30 04:18 · Score: 4, Interesting

The later use came about because it is the only sequence that cannot be hijacked

I love that security message from MS. I'm still waiting for someone to make a bootable linux CD (or hell, a DOS disk) that displays the same screen, looking like win2k and harvesting logins. It's not that hard to intercept ctrl-alt-del. I wonder if you could do it by messing with the keyboard drivers too. If you can change the signal the OS sees when ctrl-alt-del is pressed, you could intercept the interupt w/out resorting to using another OS.

--

t'nera semordnilap
Re:Patent madness? by MouseR · 2003-09-30 04:22 · Score: 4, Informative

Before the reset buttons on Macs, Apple II machines (the //c, the ][e, ][+ and //) had a reset button seated on a hefty spring, and would only take effect if you held down the Apple button (nowadays known as the Command key).

Although some Macs have had bad placement for the reset button (some Performas and the Mac II line come to mind), most Macs have had their reset buttons on the side of the machine, where it's not as easy to reach by mistake (and quite frankly, hard to locate at times).

Some of the Macs, also, had reset buttons that were inside the case, and could only be accessible with an externally-mounted, optional button that reached inside of the case for the reset button. Such was the case for the Mac Plus, SE (and SE/30) and the Mac II line (II, II x, II fx).

The worst placement for the reset button was on the PowerMac 601 (pizza box "G1" if you wish), where the front-mounted reset (and power) switch was at the same height of the (then much) thick keyboard. Pushing the keyboard against the machine could switch it off. Outright stupid it was.
Re:Patent madness? by sqlrob · 2003-09-30 04:25 · Score: 1

If you can do that, you already 0wn the machine and there's no need to pull all that crap. Just rewrite GINA passing to the original one. Done.
Re:Patent madness? by rifter · 2003-09-30 04:29 · Score: 1

Err Apple had the prior art. If you look at any Apple ][ of the original series you will almost always find that there has been an after market add on to cover up the reset key which was placed in a ludicrously easy to hit by mistake location.

And the IIe and IIgs fixed that by making the sequence ctrl openApple reset. A very similar fix. Also the reset key was way off in the corner IIRC on those models.
Re:Patent madness? by rikkards · 2003-09-30 04:31 · Score: 4, Informative

You're right it is capable of being hijacked. It uses the MSGINA.DLL and MS even explain how to do it on their website. It is capable of being used with a string of GINAs (Novell has one they use so that a user in a Novell Domain can log onto NDS called NWGINA.DLL)
Re:Patent madness? by ghost-hacked · 2003-09-30 04:51 · Score: 1

FOOLS, paying full price for SCO licenses. i just got mine of ebay for 400$. and it will be hear in 2 to 4 weeks. untill then, guess i have to wait to log off.

--
--The Titanic was built by proffesionals. --The Ark was built by Amatures.
Re:Patent madness? by Lev13than · 2003-09-30 05:01 · Score: 4, Funny

The worst placement for the reset button was on the PowerMac 601 (pizza box "G1" if you wish), where the front-mounted reset (and power) switch was at the same height of the (then much) thick keyboard. Pushing the keyboard against the machine could switch it off. Outright stupid it was.

Not only that, but they put it right beside the floppy drive. You could tell if someone was a PC user because they restarted the computer every time they tried to eject a disk...

--
When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
Re:Patent madness? by jerde · 2003-09-30 05:09 · Score: 2, Informative

Before the reset buttons on Macs, Apple II machines (the //c, the ][e, ][+ and //) had a reset button seated on a hefty spring, and would only take effect if you held down the Apple button (nowadays known as the Command key).

This only applied to the original Apple II and II+. In the earliest versions of those machines, the reset key was the same as any other key, and very easy to hit by mistake. My old II+ has the rubber washer installed under that keycap to make the key very hard to press. In later II+ revisions they changed to requiring control-reset. All later Apple II models use control-reset.

From http://apple2history.org/history/ah06.html:

The keyboard itself underwent some changes, both by users and by Apple. The original RESET key was in the upper right-hand corner of the keyboard. The problem with that key was that it had the same feel as the keys around it, making it possible to accidentally hit RESET and lose the entire program that was being so carefully entered. One user modification was to pop off the RESET keycap and put a rubber washer under it, making it necessary to apply more pressure than usual to do a RESET. Apple fixed this twice, once by replacing the spring under the keycap with a stiffer one, and finally by making it necessary to press the CTRL key and the RESET together to make a RESET cycle happen. The keyboards that had the CTRL-RESET feature made it user selectable via a small slide switch just inside the case (some people didn't want to have to press the CTRL key to do a RESET).

- Peter

--
INsigNIFICANT
Re:Patent madness? by li99sh79 · 2003-09-30 05:09 · Score: 3, Insightful

The worst placement for the reset button was on the PowerMac 601 (pizza box "G1" if you wish), where the front-mounted reset (and power) switch was at the same height of the (then much) thick keyboard. Pushing the keyboard against the machine could switch it off. Outright stupid it was.
You got that right, i taped over the reset and debugger buttons on my 7100 after reaching for something, hitting the reset button, and loosing a paper. I was so glad when I ditched that 7100 for an 8600, which I still own to this day.
-sam

--
I was just here, where did I go?
Re:Patent madness? by grahamlee · 2003-09-30 05:11 · Score: 2, Informative

The Amiga had Ctrl-LAmiga-RAmiga (or Ctrl-CBM-Amiga on some keyboards) at much the same time.
Re:Patent madness? by GregWebb · 2003-09-30 05:15 · Score: 1

Aha! Someone else had to support them!

We had _one_ at my old school. I remember it as being slightly higher than the keyboard but maybe we had different model keyboards to you.

The problem _we_ had was that the button was positioned just underneat the right-hand end of the floppy drive. The number of people who forgot Macs did software eject and tried to eject disks by giving the power button a good hard shove...

--
Greg
(Inside a nuclear plant)
Aaaarrrggh! Run! The canary has mutated!
Re:Patent madness? by drinkypoo · 2003-09-30 05:16 · Score: 1

For the record, the "externally mounted optional button" is an internally mounted piece of plastic. It's basically a lever whose fulcrum is a thin and thus flexible portion of the plastic. Pressing the button which now appears on the outside of the case will press on some microswitches similar to those inside some mice, which are located near the edge of the system board in these machines.

The piece of plastic is called the "programmer's key" and it provides two buttons; one reset button, which performs a hard reset of the system, and one debug key, which launches the debugger. With no debugger installed it sends you to a window with a > prompt, at which I never managed to do anything.

Macs now have these keys on their faces, since Apple has managed to make their OS complicated enough to where sometimes it will hang in such a way as to not give you the restart dialog. (This was always true, which is why the programmer's switch was nearly always installed.) The programmer's switch for the IIci at least came in its own little baggie, and had to be snapped into place.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Patent madness? by khenson · 2003-09-30 05:21 · Score: 5, Funny

Banyan Vines used Vines Assist GINA - called VAGINA.DLL - but it took more than three fingers to make it work so they scrapped it...
Re:Patent madness? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:35 · Score: 0

Banyan Vines used Vines Assist GINA - called VAGINA.DLL - but it took more than three fingers to make it work so they scrapped it...

Shouldn't that be modded up as funny? Tough room.
Re:Patent madness? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:39 · Score: 0

The Apple Lisa had the reset button between the two DB25 serial ports in back. You had to be really carefully when connecting/disconnecting cables if the system was you. You could easily reset it without realizing it.
Re:Patent madness? by danaris · 2003-09-30 05:41 · Score: 1

With no debugger installed it sends you to a window with a > prompt, at which I never managed to do anything.

Actually, if you type "G FINDER" at that prompt, it will attempt to force-quit whatever application is currently running.

Dan Aris

--
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
Re:Patent madness? by khenson · 2003-09-30 05:44 · Score: 1

Hmmm... slashdotters may not be familiar with the "V" word... maybe I should have put something in there about "PALM"...
Re:Patent madness? by drinkypoo · 2003-09-30 05:50 · Score: 1

I wish I had known that when the IIci was still a going concern. I actually got it from my mom when she was done using it (Recently! She's using a beige G3 now, for graphics arts work, mostly quark and illustrator) and ran netbsd on it for a while, but now I'm planning to put a PC in it and run who knows what on it, maybe BeOS. BeOS on mac will never die! :) Anyway I ended up installing Macsbug and that was handy enough, though I didn't know enough back then to actually debug anything.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Patent madness? by kolbeinn · 2003-09-30 05:58 · Score: 1

I can see it now.

One click reboot.

--
End of line
Re:Patent madness? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 06:02 · Score: 0

I guess you mean Power Macintosh 6100, powered by a power pc 601 and coming in a pizza box form factor ?

Released at the same time : Power Macintosh 7100 and 8100, culminating at a whooping 80 Mhz (quite enough to make my friends drool at the time)
Re:Patent madness? by Blkdeath · 2003-09-30 06:29 · Score: 1

I can see it now.
One click reboot.

Much as I hate to ruin good satire ...
You can already do this. Enable that 'one click shortcut' option I've always despised about Windows, then create a shortcut to a shutdown command with a reboot flag.
{sigh} I give. Take my karma. :(

--
BD Phone Home!
Shameless plug. Like you weren't expecting it.
Re:Patent madness? by Overly+Critical+Guy · 2003-09-30 06:43 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Yay. This joke appears in every single Slashdot article now. You just change "For $699, SCO will sell you *item*" to whatever, and the mods will fall over themselves trying to set you up into the "+5 Funny" stratosphere.

--
"Sufferin' succotash."
Re:Patent madness? by Molina+the+Bofh · 2003-09-30 06:44 · Score: 1

He didn't patent the WAY control-alt-delete should be pressed.

My patented pending method brings you closer to an exciting and unique control-alt-deleting experience. Using not just one, but both hands, you'll be able to easily press these three magic keys.

Heck, if one can patent a method of swinging sideways on a swing, then I surele can patent a method of typing control-alt-del.

--

-
Roses are #FF0000, Violets are #0000FF, find / -name '*base*' |xargs chown -R us && mv zig greatjustice
Re:Patent madness? by Josuah · 2003-09-30 06:45 · Score: 3, Interesting

Just imagine how much in royalties this guy could have made if he had developed that nowadays with our patent frenzy attitude!

I'm pretty sure the implementation executed by Ctrl-Alt-Del is covered in IBM patent #4,768,149, filed in August 1985. This patent describes the basic intentions and implementation of the original Ctrl-Alt-Del keystroke.
Re:Patent madness? by Overly+Critical+Guy · 2003-09-30 06:49 · Score: 1

Kind of like how doing "linux init=/bin/bash" at the LILO prompt gives you instant root access?

--
"Sufferin' succotash."
Re:Patent madness? by Dachannien · 2003-09-30 06:58 · Score: 1

Not only that, but they put it right beside the floppy drive. You could tell if someone was a PC user because they restarted the computer every time they tried to eject a disk...

That's okay, because you can always tell a Mac user if they start jamming a paper clip into your PC in order to get their floppy back.
Re:Patent madness? by mamba-mamba · 2003-09-30 07:07 · Score: 2, Insightful

I believe ctrl-alt-del raises a hardware signal, so I don't think messing with the keyboard drivers would allow you to intercept it.

I don't think there is any way to keep the hardware signal from being asserted, although you could certainly install a handler for the signal. To do this under nt/2k/xp-pro you would need to have priveledge.

I guess what they mean when they say it can't be hijacked is that it can't be hijacked by normal software running on your computer. Any attacker who could install a new interrupt handler already basically owns the box anyway.

MM
--

--
By including this sig, the copyright holders of this work or collection unreservedly place it in the public domain.
Re:Patent madness? by pherris · 2003-09-30 07:15 · Score: 1

Pray for Mojo.
Truely one of the best Simpson's quotes from one of their funnier episodes. My hat off to you sir.

--
"And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
Re:Patent madness? by Papineau · 2003-09-30 07:22 · Score: 1

At least, if you kept that button pushed, you could save your work and then power cycle the machine.
Re:Patent madness? by smallduck · 2003-09-30 07:37 · Score: 1

Apple II machines had a reset button seated on a hefty spring, and would only take effect if you held down the Apple button

In fact, it was when you held the Control key, as in "Control-Reset". // and ][+ didn't have Apple keys, although those keys were just remapped joystick buttons (or was it paddle controllers, or maybe they were the same), which a // or ][+ could have. I seem to recall some programs written for a //e actually ran fine on a ][+, but the user would need a joystick in order to type the command keys :-)

Anyway, the joystick buttons had no effect on Control-Reset on these older Apples, it would always be a "soft" reset, a jump to an intercept which usually was a reset routine but could easily be redirected.

On an Apple //e and //c, the left Apple key with an outlined symbol (aka joystick 1 button) made Control-Reset into a "hard" reset whose interrupt address and reset routine was hard coded in ROM I believe. This key combination was called an "Open Apple-Control-Reset".

The right Apple key with a filled-in Apple symbol (aka joystick 2 button) jumped to a RAM test routine like a POST. This was called a "Closed Apple-Control-Reset".

Yeah, I know. Who cares.
quack

--
no sig, no plan, no clue
Re:Patent madness? by danielsfca2 · 2003-09-30 07:48 · Score: 1

I'm pretty sure it was Control-OpenApple-Reset.

Open-Apple to contrast with Solid-Apple, which was the precursor to the Option key on later Apple ][ and Macintosh keyboards. And of course, Reset was the precursor to the modern Power key.

There was one of those ImageWriter banners in the (Apple ][e) computer lab at my elementary school that said "Control-Open Apple-Reset." I remember wondering what that meant.
I think it's kind of cool that if I feel the need to reset my PowerBook today (not that it needs it) I can still think "Control-Open Apple-Reset" as I press Control-Command-Power.
Re:Patent madness? by palp · 2003-09-30 08:07 · Score: 2, Funny

You had to be really carefully when connecting/disconnecting cables if the system was you.

Yes, wouldn't want to hook cables up to yourself improperly.

--
-palp
Re:Patent madness? by rbuysse · 2003-09-30 08:28 · Score: 1

I'm sure there's an Ellen Feiss joke in there somewhere...

--
An infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of typewriters still wouldn't repost stories on /.
Re:Patent madness? by xarak · 2003-09-30 08:32 · Score: 1

Yeah, only useful for getting the guy's password so you can hack his bank account too.

Crackers are above this.

--
Atheism is a non-prophet organisation
Re:Patent madness? by li99sh79 · 2003-09-30 08:37 · Score: 1

I'm sure there's an Ellen Feiss joke in there somewhere...
Probably, and I can't even blame "cough medicine" for my brain fart.
-sam

--
I was just here, where did I go?
Re:Patent madness? by verbatim_verbose · 2003-09-30 08:40 · Score: 1

Yeah, and I love those security messages from OSS people saying long, weird passwords are secure. pfft.

The point isn't that it's unbreakable. The point is that it's much more secure, in that stuff like web pages can't just use IE to pop up a fake one. If someone's going to be in your computer booting linux CDs, you're screwed anyway, should have had a lock on the case. There is no security without physical security.
Re:Patent madness? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 08:42 · Score: 0

Considering that you have to be Administrator to replace the GINA, big whoop. You already own the machine and can get passwords a thousand easier ways.
Re:Patent madness? by zoloto · 2003-09-30 09:06 · Score: 1

ms gina.dll

isn't that like saying it's the vagina from microsoft? in essence, they're saying they themselves are a bunch of pussies?
Re:Patent madness? by Anders · 2003-09-30 09:09 · Score: 1

Kind of like how doing "linux init=/bin/bash" at the LILO prompt gives you instant root access?
There are options to turn that off, like password.
The weak point is the BIOS password, since you can then use a boot floppy (for any OS).
Re:Patent madness? by lysium · 2003-09-30 09:28 · Score: 1

Modification of MSGINA is also how many proxy/monitoring systems tie login accounts to IP logs. This way, managers can call up fancy reports of what so-and-so-user does on his/her PC throughout the day.
===========

--
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Re:Patent madness? by Wolfrider · 2003-09-30 12:36 · Score: 1

--You lost your paper on a MAC?! That must have been like, a bummer. I bet it was a really good paper, too.

--Did you switch to a PC?

[/humor]
http://www.apple.com/switch/stories/el lenfeiss.htm l

--
.
== WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
Re:Patent madness? by glitch23 · 2003-09-30 12:46 · Score: 1

An Austrian company called Comtarsia makes a logon client called Servolution Logon Client (up to version 3.0 now, 3.1 is coming soon which supports Active Directory features) that intercepts the CTRL ALT DEL sequence (using their own GINA) and allows the user to login to the system through their logon client and the main goal is to authenticate to Active Directory and a regular LDAP directory at the same time (2 authentications) with one (1) login process for the user. It works with Samba, OS/2, NT4.0 and as I said, v3.1 supports AD, group policies and domain logons. Warning for those who take interest in it...it has bugs (I've personally reported 2 already that will be fixed in 3.1), the documentation is not the greatest and the application itself has some text labels in German.

--
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
Re:Patent madness? by jeff67 · 2003-09-30 15:23 · Score: 1

Besides the "hefty spring" reset button, my II+ had a switch on the motherboard. Set one way, the control key was required in addition to the reset. Set the other way, the reset key worked on its own.
Re:Patent madness? by questamor · 2003-09-30 17:29 · Score: 1

Perhaps the most annoying was using an Apple Keyboard II (with the large reset button on the top left) with a Quadra 630. The keyboard JUST fit underneath the front of the computer, but the reset button didn't. Pushing the keyboard towards the computer out of the way would bring up the requester to shut the thing down.

I can't remember losing any work from it, but it shit me enough to sit the machine up on small blocks enough for it not to happen
Re:Patent madness? by nicky_d · 2003-09-30 19:48 · Score: 1

Outright stupid it was.

Certainly was, but that's no reason to stop doing things - we have a bunch of Toshiba machines in our library that have precisely this problem. Student finishes off a chapter, pushes the keyboard back a little as they sit back to read it, and bink! How they laugh! Granted, these Toshibas aren't exactly new, but they're a lot newer than the PoweMac 601 (I believe they're P3s). The reset button is on a hair-trigger and it isn't recessed into the case, so it's quite a piece of work. To round off the package, it's located just beneath the sleep button, presumably to punish the fat-thumbed.
Re:Patent madness? by Captain_Chaos · 2003-10-01 02:45 · Score: 1

The later use came about because it is the only sequence that cannot be hijacked.

I remember being able to write BASIC (!!!) programs that hijacked it...
Re:Patent madness? by sqlrob · 2003-10-03 00:19 · Score: 1

You lack any sense of style.

If you have permissions sufficient to effectively fake a logon prompt, you have the permissions to subvert the existing one provided by GINA. Smaller code and you automatically gain any changes to the dialog made locally or by OS changes.

Heh. by SatanicPuppy · 2003-09-30 03:51 · Score: 3, Funny

Where would Windows be today without CTRL-ALT-DEL? I guess they would have had to add a hard reset button to all windows keyboards, which would then be in competition with the letter "e" for the key that wears out the fastest.

--
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.

Re:Heh. by wo1verin3 · 2003-09-30 03:53 · Score: 2, Insightful

Ctrl-Alt-Delete brings up task manager on some systems and options to change password/launch task manager/lock screen on the other.

It never had anything to do with hard reset, CTRL-ALT-DEL is a soft reset.

If you want a hard reset, thats why the case/tower normally has a button for reset.
Re:Heh. by Dead_Medic · 2003-09-30 03:57 · Score: 1

And even with CTRL-ALT-DEL the hard reset button gets used often. We should just reprogram the windows key on the keyboard to serve the same function. if (Windows_Key=1) { Microsoft_Sucks++; }
Re:Heh. by Overly+Critical+Guy · 2003-09-30 04:00 · Score: 1

I haven't seen a bluescreen in over six years. I stayed away from the 9x/DOS kernel.

Honestly, the whole "Windows always needs reboots" thing is done and over with. It died with the last decade.

--
"Sufferin' succotash."
Re:Heh. by geoffspear · 2003-09-30 04:01 · Score: 3, Funny

"Never" is a strong word from someone who apparently started using machines ripped off from the IBM PC model within the past 5-10 years.

--
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
Re:Heh. by jawtheshark · 2003-09-30 04:03 · Score: 1

Ctrl-Alt-Delete brings up task manager on some systems
Only on 9x/ME systems. The taskmanager under NT/W2K/XP is Control-Shift-Esc. Ctrl-Alt-Delete is used for login on NT4 based system, but you can turn that on too for W2K and XP (I think for XP, no XP experience here). When logged in on NT4/W2K (again, no XP knowledge), offers a slew of choices including "Lock Machine" (default button, very useful), "Change Password" and "Shutdown/Logoff". I always found this the least intuitive place to put the "Change Password" option, but it's there.

--
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Re:Heh. by 1010011010 · 2003-09-30 04:10 · Score: 4, Insightful

It still needs reboots. It acts better once rebooted. In generalm Win2k and XP get alower the longer they run, and start experiencing problems like randomized icon images, windows that don't redraw, loss of fonts, etc. A reboot fixes all. When my Win2k laptop gets to where it's using >350MB of RAM, and I've closed all the apps, it's asking to be rebooted.

--
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Re:Heh. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:11 · Score: 0

"Honestly, the whole "Windows always needs reboots" thing is done and over with. It died with the last decade."

You don't install a lot of software, do you? Service packs are especially bad for this.
Re:Heh. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:12 · Score: 0

The taskmanager under NT/W2K/XP is Control-Shift-Esc.

By the way, I have never came across more unergonomic key sequence than Control-Shift-Esc.
Re:Heh. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:13 · Score: 0

Honestly, the whole "Windows always needs reboots" thing is done and over with. It died with the last decade. Except when you update Windows 2000 to the latest patch... THEN you have to reboot. And then the latest patch comes along and you have to reboot. And then the latest patch comes out and you have to reboot... etc.
Re:Heh. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:17 · Score: 0

I haven't seen a bluescreen in over six years.
Yeah, that's what selective memory does for you.
Honestly, the whole "Windows always needs reboots" thing is done and over with.
Unless you get infected by some crappy coded worm that makes NT-based kernels shut down in 60 secs. Yes, newer versions of Windows tend to be more stable, but they still have a long way to go as long as things like this are possible.
Re:Heh. by cscx · 2003-09-30 04:19 · Score: 5, Informative

Well, aside from your comment indicating you to be a total jackass, there is actually a good reason behind the CTRL-ALT-DEL sequence in NT. It's a security feature.

"The CTRL-ALT-DEL key combination in NT disables user mode programs so a trojan program cannot intercept the user's name and password during the logon process. No user mode programs can be run until a valid logon has occurred. This is called restricted user mode. The CTRL-ALT-DEL key sequence indicates that there is a physically connected keyboard that the keystrokes are coming from. During the logon process, the Winlogon service passes the user's point of authentication, name, and password to the client/server (CSR) subsystem. The CSR passes the information to the security reference monitor which checks the Security Accounts Manager (SAM) database against the received information to see if the user is authentic. If so, a valid access token is generated and returned back down the line to the processes that sent the information."

Read more here.
Re:Heh. by cptgrudge · 2003-09-30 04:19 · Score: 2, Insightful

My system has been up for over two weeks without any of those problems. It's using 350MB RAM, but that's because it's me running programs. How convenient to blame Windows instead of finding the real problem.

--
Qualitas edurus commercium, nullus penitus net rimor, nullus deus beneficium
Re:Heh. by ebh · 2003-09-30 04:20 · Score: 2, Funny

Only on Slashdot could there be an argument over what CTRL-ALT-DEL does.
Re:Heh. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:21 · Score: 0

You have to use the ctrl-shift buttons on the right of your keyboard, and the other hand for esc.
Re:Heh. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:24 · Score: 0

Now, to be honest. They don't have to be rebooted the longer they *run*. I have a Win2K server that could be up for months if not years. Of course, it functions as a file server and print server AND NOTHING ELSE. So win2K is rock solid for that.

Or would be except that as I keep my patches up to date (what with remote root exploits happening about monthly), I have to reboot it weekly just to complete the patch installation.

Of course, any of them I use as a desktop need the occaisional kick in the ass. Same with *nix; I just don't need to reboot the entire OS, just restart the delicate little wannabeWin GUI. I'm seriously thinking OSX. Best of both worlds and cooler laptop.

God, what piss poor piece of shit first grade level excuse for a programmer came up with that crappy implementation of an OS that we call "windows"? I'd hang my head in shame.

My *nix machines stay up for months and some for years.
Re:Heh. by wo1verin3 · 2003-09-30 04:25 · Score: 1

for xp systems that are not connected to a domain (welcome screen enabled, fast user switching enabled) CTRL-ALT-DEL still brings up task manager.
Re:Heh. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:30 · Score: 0

(Score:-1, Makes No Damn Sense) I do realize this is a joke but even so I'm going to pick at it. If a hard reset button would be in competition with the letter "e" then ctrl would already probably be winning, as it would be used in combination with alt and del nearly as often as "e" not mention it's various other uses (cut,copy,paste,any,pizza delivery, etc.). Therefore I can only draw the conclusion that YOU FAIL IT!!!
Re:Heh. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:31 · Score: 1, Interesting

I have never came across more unergonomic key sequence than Control-Shift-Esc.

Left thumb on Control-Shift, left index or middle finger on Esc. Although I suppose that might be hard if you have small hands or a strangely arranged keyboard.
Re:Heh. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:31 · Score: 0

Two weeks? Wow Windows is far more stable then I ever know.
Just kidding, but I'd like to see a windows machine up for two years like our other machines used to do. Used to, because we've lost a few city transformers and our UPS's couldn't stay up for days.
Re:Heh. by rikkards · 2003-09-30 04:34 · Score: 1

In XP by default in a nondomain structure it will pop up the Task Manager. You can change it so you get the Lock Machine window ala NT and 2000 which also include Change Password (if you do password changes enough it isn't counterintuitive as it is the quickest way to get to the interface) Shutdown as well as Task Manager (bottom row middle button)
Re:Heh. by FuzzyBad-Mofo · 2003-09-30 04:37 · Score: 4, Funny

I have never came across more unergonomic key sequence than Control-Shift-Esc.

Obviously, you're not an EMACS user.
Re:Heh. by warpSpeed · 2003-09-30 04:41 · Score: 1

My system has been up for over two weeks without any of those problems.
Wow, a whole two weeks?
How convenient to blame Windows instead of finding the real problem.
Windows is the favorite whipping boy on this site, but deservidly(sp?) so. Rife with security holes, memory leaks, and intermitant and unexplained BSODs, its reputation preceeds it.
My windows box (at work) can't make it two weeks, with out the symptoms described by the parents comments about screens not redrawing and such.
Now my non-ms desktop at home stays up for several months at a time, it is always able to redraw the screen, and remains responsive even under heavy loads. Every few months or so I have to restart X to get it to stop piggin' up the RAM (but that is not the OSes fault). I have to reboot it when I want to load a new kernel every 6 months or so.
It might be easy to just "blame windows", but then again MS just makes it so easy.
Re:Heh. by allanj · 2003-09-30 04:46 · Score: 1

Actually, Northgate made a keyboard called OmniKey Ultra, which had a small red ctrl-alt-del button on the back - next to the dip switches, it would seem, and behind a small panel. I never owned one myself, but I've heard talk of it being the uber-super-goodness in keyboards.

I've found an image of it, but the page is Japanese - about one third down the page you can see the red button.

--
Black holes are where God divided by zero
Re:Heh. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:48 · Score: 0

> How convenient to blame Windows instead of finding
> the real problem.
/me cracks open his copy of Word source code.

Oh, wait...
Re:Heh. by Politburo · 2003-09-30 04:53 · Score: 2, Interesting

CTRL-ALT-DEL also switches to another desktop that programs are not allowed to modify in any way (Yes, Windows has multiple desktops, see recent Dr. Dobbs article for more info).
Re:Heh. by Razor+Blades+are+Not · 2003-09-30 05:01 · Score: 1

it's asking to be rebooted

Don't you mean re-formatted ?
Re:Heh. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:02 · Score: 0

I haven't seen a bluescreen in over six years.

That could be caused by a buggy video driver!
Re:Heh. by bellings · 2003-09-30 05:03 · Score: 0, Flamebait

Every few months or so I have to restart X to get it to stop piggin' up the RAM (but that is not the OSes fault).

STFU.

--
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
Re:Heh. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:05 · Score: 0

application problem or hardware problem?
Re:Heh. by DNS-and-BIND · 2003-09-30 05:09 · Score: 2, Informative

Nope. It's still with us. I've had to reboot three times in the past two days. Once for networking wierdness (reboot cured it), once for software installation (obligatory), and once because I had an unkillable task. Windows 2000, all patches/service packs.
Our "windows sysadmin" here at the office wants to reboot machines all the time. I have to stop him from rebooting the central server several times a day. "Greg, that server is in production...we can't reboot it". The culture of rebooting is still with the Windows world, in a big way. Scheduling your reboots is a foriegn concept.

--
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Re:Heh. by bellings · 2003-09-30 05:10 · Score: 0, Troll

You left your machines on the net, unpatched, for over two years at a time?

Or, do you mean that "I wish I only had to patch the services, update the libraries, and fix kernel holes every couple of weeks on Windows, like I do on Linux. It's so awesome that individual applications and services can be started and stopped on Linux, so that the machine can technically still be 'up' while performing no useful tasks, but Windows has nothing similar."

No, wait. Windows does have that. I don't know what the hell I'm talking about, I guess.

Maybe clueless dorks like you and I should just STFU.

--
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
Re:Heh. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:10 · Score: 0

Nice flamebait, loser. I'm shocked that no decent moderator hasn't come along and knocked your karma bonus off a couple times.
Re:Heh. by bellings · 2003-09-30 05:12 · Score: 0, Troll

Yeah, Karma bonuses are soooo hard to get. It takes about about 4 hours of posting to bounce off the karma kap.

Slashdot moderators may be the only humans on earth stupider than the majority of slashdot posters.

--
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
Re:Heh. by cbiltcliffe · 2003-09-30 05:14 · Score: 1

My system has been up for over two weeks without any of those problems.

Ooooh. I'm impressed! Two whole weeks! I guess the BSD boxes that have been up for over 4 years need to learn something from you, huh?

How convenient to blame Windows instead of finding the real problem.

How about this:
Win2K box. Nothing running. After a reboot, it's using about 64MB for the system. Two days of idling later, it's using nearly 150MB.
150% increase in memory usage, and absolutely nothing has happened to cause it. Except Windows has been running.

My Linux SQL database server runs consistently in 20MB RAM on a 486, and I never have to reboot it.
I guess Windows is the real cause, after all.

--
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Re:Heh. by dfenstrate · 2003-09-30 05:14 · Score: 1

I call bullshit. This was true of windows 9x, but not since 2k. I've had win2k installations running for well over 100 days without a problem (and the 100+ day run ended when the building lost power). It was moderate use- a few games, winamp, MS office.

My current XP box has been up over 2 weeks without a problem. I know that's not much, but it's right next to my bed, so I shut it off sometimes to quiet the room down. Hardware does matter- buy good parts!

--
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Re:Heh. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:15 · Score: 0

Do you realize that this is the first comment you post on slashdot, and that it's so lame you should crawl under a rock?
Re:Heh. by nortcele · 2003-09-30 05:18 · Score: 5, Funny

Yes, Windows has multiple desktops...
True. One of those "multiple" desktops usually has a blue background with white letters. I've seen it...
Re:Heh. by drinkypoo · 2003-09-30 05:20 · Score: 1

It's still true though. In order to get the ctrl--alt-del sequence from the keyboard, something has to be scanning the buffer. (Well, there's a flag you can read to see if there's new data, but that's a minor nit.) It's possible to hang dos in such a way as to prevent it from accepting ctrl-alt-del, and it's possible to mask the ctrl-alt-del interrupt (which Microsoft used to claim was an NMI in DOS.)

Incidentally and/or interestingly, the Amiga computer actually had a hard reset function built into the keyboard. Pressing control-amiga-amiga brought the reset line low and then high, I think (But who knows, I could have that backwards) and reset the computer. In order to be able to remove and reinsert the keyboard on the Amiga 500 (which had the keyboard internal to the unit, until you hacked the machine up) it was necessary to construct an additional circuit to stop this reset from occurring when you plugged in the keyboard.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Heh. by Pharmboy · 2003-09-30 05:26 · Score: 1

My god, are you that clueless? Not every machine is on the internet, first of all. I had one box that acted as a router that was up a full year, no kernel patches, because it didn't need it. (I rolled my own kernel, and knew exactly what was in there) It was fully firewalled out so no --syn packets were allowed in, only stuff that initiated within the network. No ssh, no telnet, no ftp, no nothing. It was plenty secure, never compromised.

Any smart admin knows you don't patch every time a new patch is issued, unless you just enjoy spending all your time debugging shit. You patch when the bug actually affects YOUR system/setup. If a kernel patch comes out that had fixes for local exploits, I would not bother, since no one had a local account on that box.

You talk about clueless dorks who should STFU.... but you obviously don't understand the differences in patching windows and linux. You can even patch the kernel WITHOUT rebooting if you are just patching a module. Most windows patches force you to reboot even if you really don't need to, (ie: stop and restart services). With linux you can shut down all services and go into maintenance mode, then back into init 3, flushing everything out and restarting, without rebooting. You can't do that with Windows.

Also, he never said the boxes were ON the internet. Not every computer is. If the box is a SAMBA box that is isolated on the network with no internet access (I have one of those) then there is no reason to patch it if it is functioning fine.

At least we both agree on one thing, that you don't know what the hell you are talking about.

--
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Re:Heh. by InUse · 2003-09-30 05:30 · Score: 1

Right. cf. VNC menu item "Send Ctrl-Alt-Del".
Re:Heh. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:30 · Score: 0

The CTRL-ALT-DEL key sequence indicates that there is a physically connected keyboard that the keystrokes are coming from.
WinVNC, running as a service, can send the Ctrl-Alt-Del sequence to NT. AFAIK, NT can't tell the difference, and it works like a champ.
Re:Heh. by Quixadhal · 2003-09-30 05:33 · Score: 2, Informative

The CTRL-ALT-DEL key sequence indicates that there is a physically connected keyboard that the keystrokes are coming from.
Is that why it works just fine under VNC? Don't kid yourself, Ctrl-Alt-Delete isn't a single keystroke, nor is it an NMI, it's just three key-down events that the windows event handler pays attention to. While it may disable pure user-mode programs, it's trivial to make a program that will hang onto admin privs if it acquires them (such as the VNC server).
It is true that trojans would need to get permission to run with privs, or find an exploit, but once there they can happily reroute the CSR services through themselves with the Ctrl-Alt-Delete handler none the wiser.
Clouds drift, birds fly, windows break.
Re:Heh. by E-Rock · 2003-09-30 05:33 · Score: 1

You've mistaken shitty apps with memory leaks for a Windows problem. Users often make this mistake, choosing to blame everything PC related on Microsoft. I've heard everything from Palm not bundling the full version of Intellisync to failed hardware blamed on MS. Save the condemnation for RPC holes and blame the crappy software you use for your day to day problems.
Re:Heh. by Cro+Magnon · 2003-09-30 05:39 · Score: 1

If a shitty app blows itself up, it's a shitty app. If it blows up the OS, it's a shitty OS! A good OS should be able to deal with shitty apps.

--
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Re:Heh. by bellings · 2003-09-30 05:46 · Score: 0, Troll

wow... up a full year!!!

you must be a master admin. you can go up front and order a cookie from the counter person on your next 15 minute break. it's on me... just send me the bill.

--
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
Re:Heh. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:50 · Score: 0

Slashdot moderators may be the only humans on earth stupider than the majority of slashdot posters.

Besides yourself, that is.

HINT: Slashdot moderators are the posters, fuck-tard. I'd wager even the majority of them.
Re:Heh. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:56 · Score: 0

Holy shit you're an idiot. I read you posts, and it's simply stunning how amazingly stupid you are. Your IQ appears to be limited only by your shoe size. If ignorance is bliss, you must be the happiest guy on the planet. You call others "clueless dorks" while you continue to spew unintelligable dribble from your gaping yap(probably not the only oriface you've got stuff dribbling out of either). I am in awe at your idiocy. Someone else said it best when they called you a fuck-tard. It's really the only thing that conveys the true depths of your stupidity.

Now for something you may be able to understand...

k tnx bye
Re:Heh. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 06:02 · Score: 0

Don't worry, I'm sure you'll get promoted in the fast paced food service industry (aka selling cookies).. maybe sooner if you quit giving them away.

Maybe one day you'll make head cookie chef.

If your 2 brain cells last that long.
Re:Heh. by TheRaven64 · 2003-09-30 06:03 · Score: 1

Windows NT/2K/XP will always be using almost all of your RAM. Any RAM that is not in use by programs will by allocated to disk cache, so your memory will always look full. The same is true if you run top on a FreeBSD box. There is no point having RAM in your computer if you are not using it, and if you are not using ti for programs, then you may as well use it as cache.
If you are experiencing slowdown, try disabling the indexing service. This has a rather nasty bug where, on large volumes, it will create a very large index in RAM. The `kill services with memory leaks' service (I forget its real name) will then kill it and restart it. It will then recreate the index, until it is restarted again ad infinitum.

--
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Re:Heh. by cptgrudge · 2003-09-30 06:07 · Score: 1

Wow, a whole two weeks?
Perhaps I should clarify that my Windows box makes it two weeks before I install security patches. I don't doubt that my machine could run for months, if not years before a restart. I'm a sysadmin for over a thousand windows boxes, 2k and XP. They run fine because I keep them clean without lame software and I use standardized hardware.
Rife with security holes, memory leaks, and intermitant and unexplained BSODs, its reputation preceeds it.
Security holes? Sure. But don't tell me of your "non-ms" box that doesn't have those either.
Memory leaks? Better check your software first before blaming Microsoft. There are millions that don't have that issue.
There are NO "unexplained BSODs" anymore on Windows 2k or XP. Don't use the hardware that you picked up at that swap meet, you'll be fine.
Maybe 2k and XP get a bad rap because of the hell we all experienced with 9x/ME, and people figure it will be more of the same. Microsoft gives you the tools to make clean, working systems. I do it. You say your box at work doesn't make it two weeks? Maybe you've got the shitty admin.

--
Qualitas edurus commercium, nullus penitus net rimor, nullus deus beneficium
Re:Heh. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 06:12 · Score: 0

Um...you can also stop and restart services on Windows without restarting on Windows, cowboy. But as an admin, you probably already know that.
Re:Heh. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 06:12 · Score: 0

Call bullshit all you want: it ain't true!

Hardware doesn't have anything to do with the issues discussed here. They are due to memory leaks in the Windows OS itself (well, maybe in the apps MS has running under the OS; who knows? you can't easily separate them so it's tough to tell). They have been there since win 95 and they are still there in XP.

I set up a win2k3 server for a company some months ago: it repeatedly lost it after running for about a month until I scheduled shutdowns on Sunday nites to force a reboot. It's run for 2 months now without a problem (knockin' on wood). Now what the hell would I do if this was a webserver and they needed it 24/7/365?
Re:Heh. by Zero+Zero · 2003-09-30 06:17 · Score: 1

No kidding. I think the parent of this thread gets that, otherwise he wouldn't have suggested the need to add a key to the keyboard.
Re:Heh. by cptgrudge · 2003-09-30 06:21 · Score: 1

Has it even been patched? Or is it running pre-SP1? I never said Win2k didn't have problems, but in the years that it's been out, there are a lot of problems that have been fixed.
I run a dual boot 2k/RH9 system at home. We use Squid on a server at work for web caching and I'm running a department slash web site on Debian. I use the correct tool for the job. But I'm not going to change my mind based on a bunch of anecdotal evidence by a bunch of slashbots that I can't verify. The systems under my charge work. Both Linux and Windows co-exist, and both can be made to run solid.

--
Qualitas edurus commercium, nullus penitus net rimor, nullus deus beneficium
Re:Heh. by Keeper · 2003-09-30 06:25 · Score: 1

The OS deals just fine with the shitty app (ie: it stays running without effecting system stability).
Re:Heh. by System.IO · 2003-09-30 06:28 · Score: 1

I run XP for months at a time without any user error and it remains entirely responsive and functional. I also don't use fool software.
Re:Heh. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 06:34 · Score: 0

The CTRL-ALT-DEL key combination in NT disables user mode programs so a trojan program cannot intercept the user's name and password during the logon process.

This was true once, but I've heard from people I trust that Microsoft's own DirectX makes it fairly easy to trap CTRL-ALT-DEL without requiring any special permissions, rendering the tradition merely traditional.
Re:Heh. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 06:47 · Score: 1, Informative

Our Win2k servers reboot themselves because of random errors all the time. At least it reboots itself, rather than sitting at a blue screen.

As for blue screens, on my desktops I have seen plenty of blue screens with Win2k/XP, but they were generally hardware or driver issues, so can't really blame Windows for that. Though there were a few unexplained blue screens, but I assumed it was hardware.

Honestly, the whole "Windows always needs reboots" thing is done and over with. It died with the last decade.

I find this to be untrue, though I'm not going to say its totally Windows fault. There is a lot of software that will start crashing and quit working properly until you reboot. Windows needs to be rebooted. Face it, this fact hasn't changed. And of course for applying patches and installing software you're always going to be asked to reboot. Not good for running a server, ok for the desktop, but still annoying.

Honestly, with Win2k, for a while, whenever someone was having a problem, I asked "did you reboot?" They of course said "no." I went and rebooted their machine and the problem was fixed. I haven't experienced this for a while. Maybe everyone's learned to reboot their machine themselves?
Re:Heh. by spectecjr · 2003-09-30 06:48 · Score: 1

How about this:
Win2K box. Nothing running. After a reboot, it's using about 64MB for the system. Two days of idling later, it's using nearly 150MB.
150% increase in memory usage, and absolutely nothing has happened to cause it. Except Windows has been running.

So what's the system using that memory for? You can find out you know.

Though let me guess... disk cache.

--
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Re:Heh. by EyesWideOpen · 2003-09-30 06:52 · Score: 1

Yes, Windows has multiple desktops, see recent Dr. Dobbs article for more info

Which article is that? I can't find any info on Windows having multiple desktops. Or is this not multiple desktops in the sense that Linux can have multiple desktops (workspaces) but some other permutation or similar feature?

--

As with the sun's light
My mom was magnificent
Unquestionable
Re:Heh. by Overly+Critical+Guy · 2003-09-30 07:00 · Score: 1

Windows is the favorite whipping boy on this site, but deservidly(sp?) so. Rife with security holes, memory leaks, and intermitant and unexplained BSODs, its reputation preceeds it.

It's like Slashbots are stuck in the 90s. Have you even used a version of Windows other than the 9x series? There are no memory leeks and "intermitant" BSODs. I have never seen a BSOD on 2k or XP. I don't even know what they look like.

My windows box (at work) can't make it two weeks, with out the symptoms described by the parents comments about screens not redrawing and such.

You people are so technically shallow when it comes to Windows. I think it's on purpose. If you're having redraw problems, did you not stop to think that it really sounds a lot like a driver configuration problem? I never reboot the XP computers on our network, and they're up for months at a time. We have no "screens not redrawing and such."

Now my non-ms desktop at home stays up for several months at a time, it is always able to redraw the screen, and remains responsive even under heavy loads. Every few months or so I have to restart X to get it to stop piggin' up the RAM (but that is not the OSes fault).

X is a part of your OS. Unless you're staring at a command prompt all day, which isn't much of an OS, sorry.

I have to reboot it when I want to load a new kernel every 6 months or so. It might be easy to just "blame windows", but then again MS just makes it so easy.

Read my sig.

--
"Sufferin' succotash."
Re:Heh. by jrockway · 2003-09-30 07:06 · Score: 1

> Don't use the hardware that you picked up at that swap meet, you'll be fine.

Why not? If I can run on a cheap piece of shit that I got at a swap meet, I will. Linux can lock out bad blocks of ram (with the badram patch), etc. Linux will run on anything, M$ will not. So you're saying that Windows is great because it only runs on expensive OEM machines. Great. You've just convinced me to never use it!

--
My other car is first.
Re:Heh. by a1englishman · 2003-09-30 07:08 · Score: 1

I believe the CTRL-ALT-DEL sequence is programmed into the keyboard controller. If it sees this sequence it generates a hardware interrupt zero. This is the same interrupt vector the 8088 series of chips looks at during the startup sequence. It should point to a bootstap sequence. Windows redirects it to a login process.
Re:Heh. by Blkdeath · 2003-09-30 07:14 · Score: 1

Windows NT/2K/XP will always be using almost all of your RAM. Any RAM that is not in use by programs will by allocated to disk cache, so your memory will always look full.

Your signature is apt; your opinion is uninformed.
At a previous sysadmin job, our NT4 server with 1GB of SDRAM would barely utilize even half of it at high load - including system, program, and disk cache. Its disk cache was so dreadful, I couldn't perform a search across the RAID5 array without bringing the machine to its knees.
Yes, it was at the current service pack level with all patches applied. For kicks, we decided to bring in an IBM MCSE. He brought his supervisor with him when he couldn't make it work. Alas, the dear old NetFinity could have donated 512MB of RAM to one of us and nobody would have noticed any difference.

--
BD Phone Home!
Shameless plug. Like you weren't expecting it.
Re:Heh. by NanoGator · 2003-09-30 07:18 · Score: 1

"I guess they would have had to add a hard reset button to all windows keyboards, which would then be in competition with the letter "e" for the key that wears out the fastest."

That joke would have been funny in 1999. Today, it's about as funny as jokes about Linux not supporting USB.

--
"Derp de derp."
Re:Heh. by raodin · 2003-09-30 07:21 · Score: 1

Sorry, but I like to run on quality hardware, regardless of the OS. Its just makes things so much simpler when you KNOW its a software problem.

And the only OEM machine I own is an old Powermac G3 I was given. You really CAN buy quality hardware yourself.
Re:Heh. by NanoGator · 2003-09-30 07:22 · Score: 1

"It still needs reboots. It acts better once rebooted. In generalm Win2k and XP get alower the longer they run, and start experiencing problems like randomized icon images,"

That may be a problem with your machine, but it's not a general problem with Windows. If it were, I wouldn't be able to do artwork on it.

--
"Derp de derp."
Re:Heh. by k8to · 2003-09-30 07:42 · Score: 1

In some environments two weeks may be a long time, but the last time I had to use 2k professionally, I lost around 100 dollars in revenue for the time a reboot took. I put off rebooting for the longest possible time while there for this reason, which generally was only about two weeks before swapping became unworkable.

I guess the right solution would have been to reboot the box on saturday or so when no one was there, but I'm not sure that I had the rights to do such a thing.

--
-josh
Re:Heh. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 07:42 · Score: 0

Err. you don't need to reboot.

just log off.

most resource leaks can be recovered by simply logging off. This should work well for any NT system. It actually works fairly well for w9x too.

To people who haven't experienced the resource failures this poster described, might i suggest Netscape 7.1? To improve the chances of encountering the problem, try this: open 3 navigator windows with 20 tabs in each window (also, feel free to open one or more window of each other type), try to browse to lots of foreign sites (to collect characters from various languages and fonts) and lots of pictures. The gecko core isn't actually leaking graphic GDI resources in general, it just isn't recycling them politely. You would get them back if you quit Netscape (at least under NT). The font resources that are allocated might be closer to real leaks. The graphic resource allocations are at least partly fixed in current geckos.
Re:Heh. by warpSpeed · 2003-09-30 07:49 · Score: 1

Maybe you've got the shitty admin.
Perhaps... hey wait, I am the admin!
Perhaps I should clarify that my Windows box makes it two weeks before I install security patches.
I have had MS boxes act fine in the past, with long up times, but my current system has to get reinstalled every so often just to make it usable again (and by that I mean not needing to reboot it every other day). I find that the screen will intermitantly not refresh, or scroll properly after a couple days of uptime to be most annoying.
I can't say the patches don't come out any faster for MS then they do for linux, there seems to be some every other day from various distros in the Linux world. (perhaps I really should try some of the BSDs) However, I rarely need to take my system down to install most of the patches (which, to me, is a real bonus).
9x/ME blew chunks big time! I find that win2k is tolerable (it sucks much less, even with good hardware) but I still cannot get the same stability as I can with my trusty redhat box.
I will admit that I am not a fan of MS, and that there are probably some simple admin type things that I am probably not adept at WRT Win2K that I could be doing.
Losing a bad reputation is like trying to unring a bell. No matter what MS does now, they will have to wait a long time for the ringing im _my_ ear to stop.
Re:Heh. by Politburo · 2003-09-30 07:55 · Score: 1

It is the same idea. It was a cover article about 6 months ago "Private Desktops in Windows XP". He calls them private desktops, but the idea could be expanded and implemented to be multiple desktops.. I think MS just doesn't care to do this (I think there may be other WMs for Windows that have.. but I still use explorer).
Re:Heh. by danielsfca2 · 2003-09-30 07:59 · Score: 1

I love Ctrl-Shift-Esc. It's great because you can do it easily with your left hand:

1. Fold thumb over palm so tip of thumb points at or touches middle finger.
2. Turn hand over, palm facing down.
3. Place middle fingertip on Esc.
4. While pressing Esc with middle finger, exert outward (downward and away from palm) force with thumb, pressing Ctrl and Shift at the same time.

Of course, Mac OS X's Command-Option-Esc for the equivalent function is actually even nicer because you don't have to fold your thumb over (the keystroke is like Win-Alt-Esc on a Windows keyboard). Thumb in between Command and Option, index or middle on Esc.
Re:Heh. by cptgrudge · 2003-09-30 08:00 · Score: 1

Expensive OEM machines? I'm not saying that at all, and it's not true anyway.
You think clueless end-users even know what bad RAM on some piece of hardware is, let alone how to deal with it? Like it or not, shit hardware doesn't generally make it into the enterprise-level, which by your reasoning, means Linux shouldn't either. How sad.

--
Qualitas edurus commercium, nullus penitus net rimor, nullus deus beneficium
Re:Heh. by Overly+Critical+Guy · 2003-09-30 08:01 · Score: 1

Wow. That was hilarious. A random BSOD reference that had no relevance to the topic. It didn't even make sense. Ending with the requisite ellipses...

--
"Sufferin' succotash."
Re:Heh. by Overly+Critical+Guy · 2003-09-30 08:09 · Score: 1

As opposed to Linux, where a simplie "linux init=/bin/bash" at LILO gets you instant root access with no password.

--
"Sufferin' succotash."
Re:Heh. by anethema · 2003-09-30 08:27 · Score: 1

Well, for 9x you can always do the quick reboot by holding shift when you reboot.

Or, if you are lazy, you can make a batch file (reboot.bat say) that contains the word exit. Then, make a shortcut to this batch file, and in the advanced options, say it has to run in ms-dos mode.

Your computer will restart windows without rebooting. Much nicer.

--

It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
Re:Heh. by Pharmboy · 2003-09-30 08:39 · Score: 1

some of their updates demand that you restart the computer after you install them, that is what I am referring to. as i said, and perhaps not well, the updates want you to reboot in spite of the fact that you can just restart the service updated. This is one reason i rather prefer linux, the control factor.

--
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Re:Heh. by warpSpeed · 2003-09-30 08:41 · Score: 1

It's like Slashbots are stuck in the 90s. Have you even used a version of Windows other than the 9x series? There are no memory leeks and "intermitant" BSODs. I have never seen a BSOD on 2k or XP. I don't even know what they look like. When I have to use MS, I use win2k, never touch 98 or XP.
You people are so technically shallow when it comes to Windows. I think it's on purpose. If you're having redraw problems, did you not stop to think that it really sounds a lot like a driver configuration problem?
I should have made this clearer, sorry. The redraw problem is contained in each of the programs, such as Mozilla and IE. IT tenst to effect the programs the draw graphics, but not my terminal emulator programs. Occationaly web pages will render, but the fonts will be in some horrible font. Scrolling will cause the program window to get smudged. The problem goes away for a month or two after a clean install, then starts to creep back in slowly, and get worse over time. Perhaps it is an errant program that has been installed, but that is no excuse. The OS should prevent that from happening. It looks to me like there is a resource issue at play within the drawing functions.
As for the technicaly shallow part, as my oldest daughter would say: "whatever...", with eyes rolling back in head.
X is a part of your OS. Unless you're staring at a command prompt all day, which isn't much of an OS, sorry.
X is decidedly _not_ part of the kernel, but it is part of the distribution. It is not required to make the machine useful. This is a major diferance between BSD/Linux, and MS. X is a User Space program, MS integrates (IMHO) too much of the graphical functionality too close to the heart of the system.
And, yes, sometimes I do stare at a terminal all day. I do most of my programming in a plain old terminal (or an xterm). I run X to get Mozilla, several xterms, and some other graphical programs running. None of my servers have any X related software installed on them, and they all seem to run fine with out it. They are all very good servers despite having a terminal interface for a console.
Re:Heh. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 08:44 · Score: 0

lol, from reading this thread, I can tell you are one of those guys that use Windows XP home with all the eye candy activated, then bitches that your computer isn't as fast as it was with Windows ME.
Re:Heh. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 08:52 · Score: 0

Haven't had a blow job in a long time, huh? Ever?

Was googling and found a picture that reminds me of you.

What do you think?
Re:Heh. by jkovach · 2003-09-30 08:57 · Score: 1

You do know you can configure LILO to require entry of a password before accepting boot arguments, right?
Re:Heh. by cptgrudge · 2003-09-30 09:17 · Score: 1

I made the problem of making my post waayyy too short, with too few details. I corrected it in a later post, but by then this little flamewar I started off was out of control. Come to think of it, it was a nearly perfect troll. Huh.
Anyway, my clarification was that I went two weeks between applying patches. That was where my uptime ended. I don't mind low uptimes on my workstation, as long as they aren't caused by crashes. But on the servers, that's where the uptime is measured in months, as patches get tested and deployed sparingly and on weekends. Yeah, it sucks that Microsoft makes you reboot, and luckily we're not in an environment like yours where downtime=lost revenue, but if that were the case for me, I would look at a Linux solution that didn't need reboots to apply updates.

--
Qualitas edurus commercium, nullus penitus net rimor, nullus deus beneficium
Re:Heh. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 09:35 · Score: 0

the updates want you to reboot in spite of the fact that you can just restart the service updated.

That button...right next to yes...I believe it says "No" (I could be wrong on this)...well, you can click on it.

Seriously.

I shit you not.
Re:Heh. by 1010011010 · 2003-09-30 09:43 · Score: 1

How am I supposed to "find the real problem," praytell?

I'm running MS Office, MS dev tools, Photoshop and Illustrator on this thing. I quit all running programs. 350MB memory in use. Icons scrambled. Etc.

--
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Re:Heh. by 1010011010 · 2003-09-30 09:48 · Score: 1

It's a new Dell Latitude. But it's happened on other machines running Win2k, including a new HP desktop.

"Overly Critical Guy" reads like a total fanboy. "There can't possibly be anything wrong with windows, ever! You're all idiots." And they say Linux users are Zealots. Sheesh.

I didn't say it happened all the time, just sometimes. On both new and old hardware. With factory-installed OS and with hand-installed OS. All four service packs.

--
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Re:Heh. by Eccles · 2003-09-30 09:57 · Score: 1

Ooooh. I'm impressed! Two whole weeks! I guess the BSD boxes that have been up for over 4 years need to learn something from you, huh?

Yeah, wahtever. The point is, for home users OS crashes on XP are few and far between. Linux/BSD no longer has a meaningful advantage for the desktop user in avoiding OS crashes, unlike the advantage it held over 95/98/ME and Mac OS 9.

--
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Re:Heh. by 1010011010 · 2003-09-30 09:59 · Score: 1

Windows (I am talking about Win2k, not 9x) itself leaks handles to things like bitmaps; corrupts its own font and icon caches, and -- when it's leaked enough resources -- can no longer properly draw the GUI.

I can quit all running apps, bounce certain services to reset them, and still have the machine swapping to disk and dispalying things incorrectly. Maybe it's I.E. Or Word. Or Excel. Or Access. Or Visual Studio. Dunno.

When all the applications exit, though, shouldn't the resources be freed? Shouldn't the machine become responsive again? Even if all the memory is sucked up by disk cache, shouldn't the cache shrink to give memory to programs? If I quit all programs and bounce services, Win2k still swaps like crazy when re-starting and using the apps. Only a reboot really fixes it.

--
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Re:Heh. by NanoGator · 2003-09-30 10:03 · Score: 1

"Overly Critical Guy" reads like a total fanboy."

Yeah he is begging for a smackdown. However, he does have a point. Since 2k BSODs are virtually gone. I can personally attest to this across 10 machines. I beat my machine pretty hard. I have a dual proc at work and at home, both are rendering stations. I constantly go well over the gig of RAM I have, and despite that I still have an uptime of around 2 weeks. After that, Outlook sometimes crashes. Reboot time.

Hopefully you can understand that I need to be able to rely on my machines to finish an over-the-weekend render. I'm not trying to be an MS zealot here. If being a zealot meant ignoring stability issues with Windows, I'd be out of a job.

Hopefully that clarifies my position here.

--
"Derp de derp."
Re:Heh. by 1010011010 · 2003-09-30 10:06 · Score: 1

Err. you don't need to reboot.

just log off.

most resource leaks can be recovered by simply logging off. This should work well for any NT system. It actually works fairly well for w9x too.

To people who haven't experienced the resource failures this poster described, might i suggest Netscape 7.1? To improve the chances of encountering the problem, try this: open 3 navigator windows with 20 tabs in each window (also, feel free to open one or more window of each other type), try to browse to lots of foreign sites (to collect characters from various languages and fonts) and lots of pictures. The gecko core isn't actually leaking graphic GDI resources in general, it just isn't recycling them politely. You would get them back if you quit Netscape (at least under NT). The font resources that are allocated might be closer to real leaks. The graphic resource allocations are at least partly fixed in current geckos.

If I'm logging off, I just reboot. Doesn't take much longer, and I'm guaranteed a totally fresh system. If I have to log out, I still have to close all my open apps, etc. so rebooting isn't much more bother.

Here's one single GDI resource-leak issue caused by a bug in Visual Studio. It's now been fixed (as of may of this year).

--
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Re:Heh. by 1010011010 · 2003-09-30 10:09 · Score: 1

I don't have Win2k BSODs unless I'm working on my ISAPI filter, and screw up a pointer dereference. Apparently IIS on Win2k can torpedo the kernel.

On XP Pro, I can get a spontaneous reboot sometimes by hitting the windows key while in a directx game (such as Rise of Nations). That fucking Windows key is right there next to ctrl, alt, shift, etc. too -- so it's not an uncommon occurence when I'm in a hurry in a game (like Half-Life, etc).

--
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Re:Heh. by NanoGator · 2003-09-30 10:16 · Score: 1

"On XP Pro, I can get a spontaneous reboot sometimes by hitting the windows key while in a directx game (such as Rise of Nations). That fucking Windows key is right there next to ctrl, alt, shift, etc. too -- so it's not an uncommon occurence when I'm in a hurry in a game (like Half-Life, etc)."

I can't make the same claim for XP that I did for 2k. I'm using it on my laptop here, and though it's a nice OS, I'm glad the nature of my machine is that I reboot it once a day.

It's fine if it stays up and running, but putting it into suspend mode usually sets up a chain of events that requires a reboot.

--
"Derp de derp."
Re:Heh. by pyrrho · 2003-09-30 10:45 · Score: 1

I think it's easier when you can be sure it's a hardware problem. It's easier to buy a new component than fix a software problem.

--
-pyrrho
Re:Heh. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 10:50 · Score: 0

X is a part of your OS. Unless you're staring at a command prompt all day, which isn't much of an OS, sorry.

That's like saying that Word is a part of your OS because you use it every day. Word is how you operate YOUR computer, Word is the OS.

X is not the only way to draw graphics in Unix... far from it. It's ubiquitous, true, but so is arial font, doesn't make it a part of the OS.

Having said that... did you notice he can just restart X without rebooting the OS, this will affect only things using X, not servers, etc. That's why this is not just semantics. Mozilla has bugs too (although it's certainly commercial quality), but when it crashes, it doesn't/can't take the OS with it.
Re:Heh. by pyrrho · 2003-09-30 10:53 · Score: 1

and why? you think that's fine then?

memory leaks... no problem... disk space is free!

--
-pyrrho
Re:Heh. by spectecjr · 2003-09-30 11:15 · Score: 1

and why? you think that's fine then?

Certainly. Leave a machine sitting idle, it's pointless to leave the memory empty. So it pre-loads and caches data from the drive in case it might be needed later. Also, with low loads, until you run out of memory and start swapping you don't need to trim the working set of a process, so as it allocates and deallocates memory, the memory footprint of it will expand. When memory pressure increases, the working set is trimmed, reducing its footprint to just what it's using.

That's an assumption of course; the original poster didn't give any inkling as to *what* memory was being used, which you can get from the system diagnostics.

In other words, it's not a memory leak in the first place, which I believe was my point. The original poster is more than welcome to prove me wrong by telling me which process is doing the leaking, and what that memory is used for.

--
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Re:Heh. by pyrrho · 2003-09-30 11:18 · Score: 1

I'm learning how things work in the real world, that's why I know that the moment that Linux has no advantage over Windows is the moment everyone probably switches to Linux for the reasons that used to be valid.

--
-pyrrho
Re:Heh. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 12:26 · Score: 1, Insightful

Scheduling your reboots is a foriegn concept.

Funny you should mention that... My company has a Win NT4 server that has been running without problems for 2 years now. When I set it up, I setup the APC UPS software to schedule a power off at 3:00 AM every Sunday morning just to force a reboot. Wish I could claim credit for it: I got the tip from a guy that managed a server farm (more than 20 NT servers) for a larger company and he claims that was the only way he could keep them running well.
Re:Heh. by Wolfrider · 2003-09-30 12:53 · Score: 1

Yep, I just checked and you can have VMware send Ctrl-Alt-Del to the client session as well. Sounds like the grandparent poster is confuzed.

--
.
== WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
Re:Heh. by PenguiN42 · 2003-09-30 13:30 · Score: 1

If you check the VNC source you'd see that the way they send "Ctrl Alt Del" is a hack -- it doesn't just send the keyboard events along. It actually switches over to the security desktop with some magic I don't quite remember.

You have a point about 3rd party programs being able to redirect to/from the security desktop, however. But VNC requires some sort of driver or hook to be installed by administrator, doesn't it? (As administrator, you can just hijack MSGINA.DLL and run the whole login with your own code anyway)

--
The following sentence is true. The preceding sentence was false.
Re:Heh. by cscx · 2003-09-30 16:19 · Score: 1

I believe it has to be running as a service.
Re:Heh. by cbiltcliffe · 2003-10-01 03:48 · Score: 1

Has it even been patched? Or is it running pre-SP1?

It was SP3 at the time I noticed this, which was the newest SP available at the time. Now it's SP4.

--
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Re:Heh. by bellings · 2003-10-02 07:22 · Score: 1

You do not appear smart. This is not bad.

You do not appear to know that you do not appear smart. That is unfortunate, both for you, and the people around you.

--
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
Re:Heh. by raodin · 2003-10-02 11:02 · Score: 1

I dunno, I'd rather sit down and spend a few minutes to fix a software problem than just plunk down some cash... Maybe I'm just cheap. :)
Re:Heh. by TheRaven64 · 2003-10-03 03:20 · Score: 1

What was the amount of virtual memory you had set? Under Windows NT, the total amount of memory that can be used is limited to the amount of virtual memory you have allocated. In my original post, I skimped over the details, but the way NT manages memory is to use all of it (except for the segment allocated to the kernel) as disk cache, and the swap file as main ram (although it usually deals only with the ram-stored cache of the swap file). This is sensible in theory, since it means that disk caching and memory paging can be handled by the same algorithm. In practice it rarely works, as a process with a large amount of I/O can cause other processes to be swaped back to disk. A side effect of this strategy is that it is never entirely sure how much of your RAM is being used to cache the swap file (i.e. you system memory) and how much is being used for other things, making the memory monitor in the task manager quite unreliable.

--
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Re:Heh. by WhiteDragon · 2003-10-03 03:20 · Score: 1

From a usability standpoint, I always thought it was odd that after changing your password with ctrl-alt-del, you have to hit "cancel" because there is no "ok" button.

--
Did you mount a military-grade, variable-focus MASER on an unlicensed artificial intelligence?

From his own mouth... by rwiedower · 2003-09-30 03:52 · Score: 1, Flamebait

Bradley says the "strength of the country" is at stake because relatively few students go into science or technology. Further, he says, ordinary citizens need to understand science and technology better to make informed choices in the voting booth.

Hmm. Let's see. Americans aren't smart enough and are just used to pushing buttons instead of understanding complex ideas. Who could've helped that along with a simple button push that magically solves all computer problems?

Re:From his own mouth... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:06 · Score: 0

oh, you crazy rest of the world.. you guys sure do seem to know everything, don't you? Not pompous at all either... Sooo humble about your vast knowledge of soaps and deodorants.. God bless the rest of the world..
Re:From his own mouth... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:08 · Score: 0

Idiotic

That's really all I can say about your statement. Are you suggesting that simply creating a hardware-friendly keystroke over 20 years ago is responsible for the downfall of the worldwide education system? Do you actually 'preview' your posts before you submit them, or do you see that extra screen as an overall nuisance to your ultimately feeble attempts at cutting sarcasm? Really, I want to know.

Dr. Bradley is an adjunct professor from IBM who teaches at NC State (and a few other places occaisionally). He teaches the basic ECE course for logic, in addition to an honors course on discrete math and data structures. His teaching style revolves around the concept that, while easier methods exist, it is imperitive that you know HOW those methods work. No, this does not make him some sort of super professor - it simply makes him a GOOD one.

YOU are suggesting that HIS creation of a hardware interrupt for soft-resetting a machine somehow corrolates to the pushbutton attitude of today's students. So, do you hate the inventor of the calculator too? That bastard made it easier to do math! Also - the computer? BAH! Get some paper you anti-luddite! Go to the library if you want some information! And walk, don't use your car.

Idiot... I think we should incorporate a 30 question test on the posting page, so that we can at least guarantee SOME level of intelligence from the poster.
Re:From his own mouth... by digidave · 2003-09-30 04:29 · Score: 1

Our computers only have one button, and we push that before it leaves the factory.

--
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
Re:From his own mouth... by rifter · 2003-09-30 04:43 · Score: 1

Bradley says the "strength of the country" is at stake because relatively few students go into science or technology. Further, he says, ordinary citizens need to understand science and technology better to make informed choices in the voting booth.

Actually, I had a very different reaction to this. Bradley says not enough students are taking computer science. Companies say there are not enough computer science workers so they have to bring in H1-B workers. But the jobs are being outsourced and visaed away, and have not come back.

Who in their right mind expects more students to take computer science when even during the boom a CS degree was mostly meaningless and now after the boom it means almost certain unemployment? Why should more people want to get into an industry that is being pissed away?

My advice to students would e exactly the opposite of Bradley's. Stay the hell away from this field for awhile. Yes, the strength of the country is at stake. Yes future innovation will probably come from Asia where all the jobs are going and the plans are being made nowadays. But unless you can get fnding and run your own company there is little we can do about it except that last bit about getting smart in the voting booth.

I wonder if Bush knows that unemployed people have plenty of time to show up to voting booths and figure out butterfly ballots?

Thank you by yotto · 2003-09-30 03:52 · Score: 5, Funny

As a tech support guy, I just want to give this man a hearty "Thank You"

"I don't have a control key. I have an alt key and this little wavy square, and next to that is a curtl key. And I hit that and backspace and it doesn't do anything."

Thanks, man.

(ps: yes, I know he didn't intend it for the end user. It's a JOKE. Read it, chuckle, give me mod points, and move on)

--
Pulp Audio Weekly - Geek News and Reviews

Re:Thank you by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 03:57 · Score: 1, Funny

As a tech support guy, I just want to give this man a hearty "Thank You"
I'm sure all your $8.50/hour tech support brethren feel the same. "Support" in the Windows PC world is like "grease monkey" in the car world. It's not a badge of honor: You Are A Loser.
Re:Thank you by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:18 · Score: 0

If you have to explain your jokes, you have failed.
Re:Thank you by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:34 · Score: 0

Uh no....we can blame parents, the educational system, or social structure.
Re:Thank you by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:56 · Score: 0

I'm sure all your $8.50/hour tech support brethren feel the same.

Well, that's $2/hour more than what you are making at McDonalds.

You Are A Loser.

And you are a toilet.
Re:Thank you by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:17 · Score: 0

Funny how some people like to judge others by the job they hold. If it wasn't for the tech support people and the "grease" monkeys you wouldn't be driving around in your car (you probably don't even know where your dipstick is) and entering things into your pda that you have no idea how it works. It isn't an insult to those who do the jobs that they do. They actually like what they are doing and probably good at it. Just because you think it is beneath you doesn't give you a right to bash others.
Re:Thank you by cbiltcliffe · 2003-09-30 05:41 · Score: 1

If it wasn't for the tech support people and the "grease" monkeys you wouldn't be driving around in your car (you probably don't even know where your dipstick is)....

Actually, I was rebuilding engines before I ever owned a computer. Of course, I wasn't the one who was bashing the support people, so I guess it doesn't matter.

Ever see a 13 year old skinny computer geek (who just hasn't discovered computers yet) trying to pick up a cast iron cylinder head from a Chevy straight 6? :P

--
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Re:Thank you by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:41 · Score: 0

Funny how some people don't recognize a troll when they see one and have to take offense to everything they read.
Re:Thank you by MightyYar · 2003-09-30 05:44 · Score: 1

Am I the only one that has to tear off those little windows and context menu keys to stop from accidentally hitting them?
I have a drawer full of them now.

--
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Re:Thank you by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:48 · Score: 0

It's the same old shit...computers and cars. All you have to do to be able to build either one is know how they work and not be a spaz.
Re:Thank you by bahamat · 2003-09-30 05:57 · Score: 0

Wow, you actually asked for mod points and got them. I'm impressed.

I wonder if that will work for me too.
Hey! Moderators! Mod me up!
Please.
Re:Thank you by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 06:26 · Score: 0

Yes. You must be retarded.

HTH. HAND.
Re:Thank you by protoshoggoth · 2003-09-30 07:25 · Score: 1

There's an easier way. Try winkey assassin: www.diabloii.net/files/utilities.shtml.
Re:Thank you by pyser · 2003-09-30 08:26 · Score: 1

Maybe he's anonymous cos he's a grease monkey himself.
Re:Thank you by mog · 2003-09-30 09:12 · Score: 1

You're saying downloading the software, installing it, running it --- is easier than popping off a couple of keys?

Another interesting fact: by Sheetrock · 2003-09-30 03:52 · Score: 5, Interesting

Ctrl-Alt-Del is the only key combination on your computer that has its own hardware interrupt (similar to Ctrl-Open Apple/Closed Apple-Reset on Macs). Again, this was to prevent interception in real mode, however protected mode changes all rules.

--

Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.

Re:Another interesting fact: by MikeHunt69 · 2003-09-30 03:57 · Score: 1

Im pretty sure numlock has one as well.
Re:Another interesting fact: by l2718 · 2003-09-30 04:04 · Score: 5, Informative

Ctrl-Alt-Del is the only key combination on your computer that has its own hardware interrupt ... this was to prevent interception in real mode

Not quite. Interrupt processing by the hardware is the same for real and protected modes (which are internal to the processor).

All key press/release events generate the same hardware interrupt (normally the keyboard is wired to the IRQ1 line of the interrupt controller). Standard BIOS setup configures the 8859 to generate Int 0x9 for this IRQ. The keyboard interrupt handler is then charged with identifying the Ctrl-Alt-Del combination and acting on it.

The default BIOS action is to triger a software interrupt (Int 0x17 IIRC). The motivation for this was not to prevent interceptions. Rather, this conforms to the policy of having BIOS entrypoints go through software interrupts (in this case allowing any program to generate a soft-boot).
Re:Another interesting fact: by jsmyth · 2003-09-30 04:08 · Score: 4, Informative

Ctrl-Alt-Del is the only key combination on your computer that has its own hardware interrupt
Nope. It shares the same hardware IRQ with everything else on the keyboard. The interrupt service routine handles the particular values received from the keyboard, so it spawns a software interrupt for ctrl-alt-del that (OS-specific) suspends user mode code and does something configurable, e.g. Windows Security dialog in W2K, task mgr in W9x, or in Linux configured by what you've got in /etc/inittab.

--
jer

We may be human, but we're still animals
- Steve Vai
Re:Another interesting fact: by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:15 · Score: 0

Interesting, but is it true.
Re:Another interesting fact: by Phroggy · 2003-09-30 04:15 · Score: 1

(similar to Ctrl-Open Apple/Closed Apple-Reset on Macs)

You may be thinking of the Apple II, which had "open Apple" and "closed Apple" keys (the former was an outline of the Apple logo; the latter was solid). As I recall, Control-Reset would interrupt a program, and Control-Open Apple-Reset would reboot the machine.

Macs have a Command key, which also has an open Apple logo on it, as well as the clover-leaf design. Older Macs also have a power key, which has a triangle - sadly, the power key is no longer to be found on Apple's Pro keyboards. Under classic Mac OS, Command-Power invokes the system debugger (MacsBug if it's installed, or the little white box), equivalent to pressing the Interrupt button next to the Reset button in the back of the machine. Command-Control-Power resets the machine, and is done in hardware rather than software so it always works.

--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Re:Another interesting fact: by fsbilly · 2003-09-30 04:26 · Score: 1

try control+eject
Re:Another interesting fact: by InfiniteWisdom · 2003-09-30 04:28 · Score: 1

I have mod points. But no -1 bullshit mod option :(
Re:Another interesting fact: by Phroggy · 2003-09-30 04:36 · Score: 1

Control-Eject works great for rebooting, shutting down and going to sleep. It does not work for turning the system on, and rebooting after a kernel panic. The only way for me to reboot my eMac after a kernel panic is to reach around the side of the machine and hold the power button for 4 seconds, then press it again to turn it back on.

--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Re:Another interesting fact: by coinreturn · 2003-09-30 04:48 · Score: 1

Ctrl-Alt-Del is the only key combination on your computer that has its own hardware interrupt

Funny, it doesn't always work (when the computer is in the total-freeze pull-the-plug mode). I therefore conclude that it generates a software interrupt.
Re:Another interesting fact: by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:58 · Score: 1, Informative

This is not entirely correct either. Right after POST, when a key is pressed/released, the keyboard controller generates an IRQ1 which will cause the processor to stop the currently executing program and execute the handler for interrupt 9 (as indicated in the Interrupt Vector Table). This handler keeps track of whether you're pressing ctrl-alt-delete and will cause the machine to reboot if that's the case (using another interrupt, actually).

When a modern 32-bit protected mode operating system like Windows (2000/XP) or Linux is loaded, it is a different story. The interrupt for the keyboard (which doesn't necessarily have to be 9, since the o/s can reprogram the 8259A chip to use another int) is handled by the o/s driver and this driver decides what is going to happen when ctrl-alt-delete is pressed. It could chose to simply treat ctrl-alt-delete as any other keyboard combination and maybe define another reset combination. The BIOS is out of the loop and it is the BIOS that has defined ctrl-alt-delete to be special. Thus the o/s is free to override this.

From your post it seems that you think that in Win2K/WinXP it is still the BIOS that intercepts the ctrl-alt-delete and then somehow forwards it to the O/S. This is not the case.
Re:Another interesting fact: by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:06 · Score: 1, Informative

There are numerous reasons why it doesn't have to work.

In DOS, any program could disable the interrupts (using for example the CLI instruction) or could reprogram that 8259A to not generate IRQ1's. Or the program could change the interrupt vector table and intercept data from the keyboard and ignore the ctrl-alt-delete event.

In modern operating systems, the BIOS is out of the loop (the IRQ generated is handled entirely within the o/s) and the o/s could simple chose to ignore the combination. Or an error in it or one of it's other drivers may have caused the keyboard handler to be overwritten or the interrupts to have been disabled (it only takes two instructions for a linux driver to crash the system so ctrl-alt-delete won't work: "cli" and "hlt", in sequence).

From a hardware point of view there's nothing special about ctrl-alt-delete. The keyboard doesn't know it's doing something special, nor does the keyboard controller, CPU, chipset etc. when encountering ctrl-alt-delete.
It's the BIOS that is given special treatment to ctrl-alt-delete. Mayn modern O/S'es have chosen to follow the convention of this key combo being something special, even though they didn't have to (as I said, the BIOS is out of the loop when such O/S'es are loaded).
However when the software responsible for handling ctrl-alt-delete is malfunctioning or the control is taken away from it, theis key-combo won't work.
Re:Another interesting fact: by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 14:08 · Score: 0

It's not a Commodore 64! On those guys the "Restore" key was tied to the processor's NMI (that's Non Maskable Interrupt) line and absolutely could not be blocked, although it could be "hijacked".
Re:Another interesting fact: by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 21:19 · Score: 0

"Overrated" works well enough.
Re:Another interesting fact: by Anonymous Coward · 2003-10-05 15:38 · Score: 0

toynbee idea
in movie 2001
resurrect dead
on planet jupiter

Yeah but by mr100percent · 2003-09-30 03:52 · Score: 0

Yeah, but who made the Mac shortcut? They have two:

Command-Option-Escape is Force Quit...
Control-Command-Power is Restart

Also, why isn't Control-Alt-Delete hardcoded in anymore? When I get a hard enough freeze on a PC, even the key combo doesnt work anymore. Why did they remove that?

Re:Yeah but by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 03:53 · Score: 0

OSX is Unixy. I've never found a need for a reboot, unless I upgrade.
Re:Yeah but by christopher240240 · 2003-09-30 04:02 · Score: 1

Then you have obviously never used it.
Re:Yeah but by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:09 · Score: 0

yup, all the time. Seriously: unless I upgrade something I have *never* had a system crash. Certainly programs have died, but only in the proper unix fashion; they never take down the OS.
Re:Yeah but by Phroggy · 2003-09-30 04:24 · Score: 1

Heh, weird. I get kernel panics pretty often. Had three in one day once, although going a few months without one is just as common. One time I got a pre-10.2-style kernel panic in 10.2.6 - that freaked me out because I had assumed all kernel panics had been completely replaced in 10.2 and that wouldn't ever happen. I took a picture of it.

Pictures here if you don't know what they look like, and technical docs here.

--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Re:Yeah but by dissy · 2003-09-30 05:05 · Score: 2, Interesting

> Yeah, but who made the Mac shortcut? They have two:
>
> Command-Option-Escape is Force Quit...
> Control-Command-Power is Restart

Those are actually left over from the Apple // days.

The apple//'s had two 'alternate' keys, open-apple and closed-apple (Pictures of either an apples outlike, or a solid apple)
There was also a hardware reset button.
There was no alt, but there was control and shift (standard ASCII practice at the time)

The reset key was hard wired into the interupt controller, but it performed a soft-reset used alone, and by default the jump register was not set so the key didnt do anything.
In the // and //+ i believe this was used by the basic addon card (Each machine came with one ver of basic in it, and the other version on an addon card, depending which modal you got. the //+ had more ram too)

Technically speaking, the two apple keys were not handled by the keyboard controller, but by the joystick controller.
As a matter of fact, open apple and closed apple were button 1 and 2 on the first joystick. So technically one could reboot with a joystick-button, control, reset as well ;)

Just open-apple and reset caused a soft-reset signal to the cpu. this signal told the cpu to simply jump to a memory location ($FFFD if memory serves) and not to reset any other states or registers. This was used to 'break' programs run that didnt want to give it up easily and trapped control-C and the like.
In the three bytes there you had a jump command, and the next two bytes are the address where.

Then they added the 3rd key, control, which is actually the only key of the three that comes through the keyboard controller.
So there is one direct interpt key (reset), an apple key (joystick), and control key (keyboard) that all three caused the cpu to reset the counters and registers so the chip would have to reboot from scratch.

Later, closed apple was removed, and open-apple was renamed 'command' and given a stupid clover looking icon. Nowadays open-apple/command is also labeled as 'alt', and in USB keyboards actually sends the same keyboard code.

The open-apple,control,escape was actually from the Apple //GS. That key combo was added to get into the systems control panel (There generally wasnt an OS)

On the apple// it was a hardware reason. the //gs just wanted something similar and familiar but different (escape vs reset), and the macs just continued using them because apple users were used to it.

(Ahh the wasted brain memory I have used up on that subject heh)
Re:Yeah but by throbbingbrain.com · 2003-09-30 06:54 · Score: 1

The apple//'s had two 'alternate' keys, open-apple and closed-apple (Pictures of either an apples outlike, or a solid apple)
Apple II/II+ had no 'open-apple' or 'closed-apple' keyboard buttons. Those first appeared on the IIe.
Re:Yeah but by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 07:07 · Score: 0

Later, closed apple was removed, and open-apple was renamed 'command' and given a stupid clover looking icon. Nowadays open-apple/command is also labeled as 'alt', and in USB keyboards actually sends the same keyboard code.
Actually, its labled option I think. I have my microsoft usb keyboard plugged into my mac, and the alt key is recognized as option. The windows key is recognized as the command key.
Re:Yeah but by CyberDave · 2003-09-30 07:12 · Score: 1

Later, closed apple was removed, and open-apple was renamed 'command' and given a stupid clover looking icon.

Not to be pedantic or anything, by the clover symbol came from a Swedish (?) trail guide and means "useful feature" or something similar. (At least, that's what I remember from reading a tips & tricks book for Mac OS a loooong time ago).

If i remember the story right, it was just the clover symbol on early Mac keyboards. It confused people so much, particularly those who had previously gotten used to the Apple key on the Apple II series that they had to add the Apple symbol back to the key (but still left the clover symbol, which is still there to this day and also shows up in menus and identifies keyboard shortcuts for menu items.

CyberDave
Re:Yeah but by dissy · 2003-09-30 07:16 · Score: 1

> Actually, its labled option I think. I have my microsoft usb keyboard plugged
> into my mac, and the alt key is recognized as option. The windows key is
> recognized as the command key.

Actually you are totally correct. My mistake.

I use the apple usb keyboard on a winXP machine myself. Don;t know why I remembered those keys backwards like that heh
Re:Yeah but by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 07:49 · Score: 0

I think it meant "Power" in Swedish.
Re:Yeah but by mt2mb4me · 2003-09-30 07:52 · Score: 1

i am not up on my apple history what came first the apple //e or the apple //c? becuse my //c had open apple and closed apple
Re:Yeah but by throbbingbrain.com · 2003-09-30 11:22 · Score: 1

Poke around this site. It's more history than I knew.

Short answer: For marketing reasons, the Apple III was first, then the IIe, then the IIc. All three had the open-apple and closed-apple buttons.
Re:Yeah but by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 23:23 · Score: 0

hi sand nigger cultist murderer terror supporter fucking rag head huckalucka.

i hope a military sniper gets you with a .50 caliber projectile in the leg and you bleed a lot.

and fuckhead. in modern OSen, ctrl-alt-del is "hard coded" the bios does respond to that. but of course, the OS can trap that and do what it likes.

you got a fucking problem with that? or should any random person walk up to any random computer and reboot it with the 3 fingered salute

idiot asshole

microsoft keyboard by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 03:53 · Score: 1, Insightful

is this an intellectual property breach then? microsoft keyboard

Re:BARRY BONDS by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 03:53 · Score: 0

That may be a bit of a stretch, dontcha think?

So it's his fault ... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 03:53 · Score: 2, Funny

That Windows is even usable.

Too short by Foozy · 2003-09-30 03:53 · Score: 1, Insightful

I wanted to know much more about the guy, then *poof* the article was over.
Sheesh...

Re:Too short by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 03:56 · Score: 0

the article is still there buddy, i think you're experience a local *poof*
Re:Too short by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 03:57 · Score: 0

Step 1) Enroll at NC State
Step 2) Enroll in ECE212 or ECE292H
Step 3) Enjoy the sarcasm of adjunct prof. Dr. David Bradley :)

You should see his spiel on 'The History of Computers'

He has a really great picture of Bill Gates in his Oxford days. Plus some great stories about Microsoft, Intel, Apple... mind the biting sarcasm of course, but still a great person to listen to.
Re:Too short by DrWhizBang · 2003-09-30 04:05 · Score: 3, Funny

Should you really use the word "poof" when posting about an article on "the three-fingered salute"?

--
Schrodinger's cat is either dead or really pissed off...
Re:Too short by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:22 · Score: 0

What do Intel, Microsoft and Apple have to do with the history of computers? Computers existed waaaaaaaayyyy before any of those companies existed.
Re:Too short by chowdmouse · 2003-09-30 04:34 · Score: 1

Check the IBM website, after all I'd expect a "rock star" to have some info available. Maybe a pin up even?

Not by smurphette · 2003-09-30 03:53 · Score: 0

Quite

Oh yes they can be struck by accident! by gunne · 2003-09-30 03:53 · Score: 5, Funny

When quake first was released, i didn't want to use the mouse, only the keyboard. However, after doing the shoot-strafe-left-look-down maneuver one time too many, i decided to switch to mouse... (shoot-strafe-left-look-down = ctrl, alt(gr), left arrow, delete)

Re:Oh yes they can be struck by accident! by SpaceRook · 2003-09-30 04:15 · Score: 1

Also, how many of us simply try to hit all three keys in one nano-second instead of patiently holding down CTRL, then ALT, and then DELETE? I accidentally delete a desktop icon at least once a week.
Re:Oh yes they can be struck by accident! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:21 · Score: 0

Press ctrl and alt at the same time, then del. The order of the first two keys doesn't matter.
Re:Oh yes they can be struck by accident! by gid · 2003-09-30 04:25 · Score: 1

I wish he woulda told that to my Linux box which got rebooted by accident by hitting those keys. I got pissed, switched my monitor over to my other machine, slammed the keyboard back up against the wall where I kept it, and hear: *beep*, see floppy activity, cdrom light flicks a bit... shit....

I had a pretty good uptime too. :(
Re:Oh yes they can be struck by accident! by A_Non_Moose · 2003-09-30 04:30 · Score: 3, Funny

Accident...sure. {kidding, of course}

Though it could be worse, here's how:

Clippy: It looks like you're about to have your ass handed to you in Quake and you pressed ctrl+alt+delete.

Would you like to:

1) Reboot and look like a llama?

2) Like me to write an apology for you (after reboot, of course).

3) Let you continue playing, while I stay on as a background task laughing at you and sending l33t /\/\3$$4G3$ for you?

4) Suggest you use a mouse, you dork, as this is not Doom or Doom ][.

5) Launch minesweeper...c'mon, you know you want to! No pressure though....muwahaha...errr.

/end clippy

--
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
Re:Oh yes they can be struck by accident! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:40 · Score: 0

give yourself a chance to stop it, then.
perl -pi -e 's/^(ca::.*) now/$1 30/' /etc/inittab
Re:Oh yes they can be struck by accident! by Tom7 · 2003-09-30 12:05 · Score: 1

So true. I was about to post this exact situation!
Re:Oh yes they can be struck by accident! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 12:11 · Score: 0

getting uptime is like, totally leet.
Re:Oh yes they can be struck by accident! by gid · 2003-09-30 13:40 · Score: 1

ya, but that was in 1998... uptime WAS leet back then :)
Re:Oh yes they can be struck by accident! by tconnors · 2003-09-30 14:49 · Score: 1

Oh yes they can be struck by accident!

My cat has managed to press ctrl-alt-backspace on my laptop before, killing X.

He has also managed to press alt-sysrq-t or something that dumps tasks to the console (no harm done that time - imagine if he pressed b instead, without s then u first?). And the other cat kept on pressing the power button, until I put a "molly gaurd" over the button (I had to do a similar thing to the heater, because I got home one day and discovered the heater had been on all day, because one of them had stepped on the touch sensetive switch).

uhmmm by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 03:54 · Score: 0

RePost

Not struck by accident? by burgburgburg · 2003-09-30 03:54 · Score: 4, Funny

Who is he kidding? Just the other day, my gorillas and I were playing soccer in the lab. Why we must of hit ctrl-alt-del over a hundred times just in the first half. After that, we moved the game over to the kitchen, just to be safe.

Re:Not struck by accident? by shortscruffydave · 2003-09-30 04:09 · Score: 1

That reminds me of something that happened in my office a while back.

We had a room set aside with about 2 dozen PC's in it, all logged in. One day somebody left the room unattended for a while with window open (well it did get kind of hot with all that kit in there).

A pigeon got in through the open window and spent ages just flying/hopping around at random, occaisonally landing on a keyboard or nudgign a mouse (as well as leaving the world's supply of guano behind).

In the aftermath, all the PCs had various different apps running, with various bits of data entered, depending on what the pigeon had hit on the keyboard...an interesting and smaller scale variation on the 'infinite number of monkeys' thing I guess.
Re:Not struck by accident? by jandrese · 2003-09-30 04:30 · Score: 2, Funny

Reminds me of a commercial I saw awhile back. A salaryman in an office is crumbling up a bag of chips and dumping it on his keyboard, then he opens the window and leaves. In comes a pigeon that starts hopping around and tapping on the keys, trying to get at the crumbs. out in the hallway a boss-guy walks by and pauses at the door for a second. He hears a tapping sound and walks away happy, thinking his drone is hard at work. The scene cuts to a bar where the guy is popping a beer (which is I think what the ad was selling) and muttering some comment about working hard.

I thought it was pretty amusing.

--

I read the internet for the articles.
Re:Not struck by accident? by WolfJ514 · 2003-09-30 04:53 · Score: 1

Actually, the commercial was for Outback Steakhouse.

I thought it was amusing, myself.

What's the big deal? by Brahmastra · 2003-09-30 03:54 · Score: 1, Interesting

Ok, so he chose Ctrl-Alt-Del to do a warm boot. Maybe he could have chose alt-x-y-5-* or ctrl-alt-f1-f2-f7........ Why's this being written about as if it is some innovative rocketery? Someone had a computer system. They wanted to be able to do a warm boot fast. Therefore they made a key-sequence to allow it. And this is a story . . .

Was it first? by Shamashmuddamiq · 2003-09-30 03:54 · Score: 3, Interesting

...or was the Apple ]['s openapple-control-reset first? I know that the Apple ][ came out in 1977, but I'm not sure if it had implemented the three-key sequence yet or if it had borrowed that idea from the alt-ctrl-delete that was noted here.

Anybody wanna fill in on the details here?

--
...just my 2 gil.

Re:Was it first? by tuffy · 2003-09-30 04:06 · Score: 1

Anybody wanna fill in on the details here?
I don't think "Control-openapple-reset" appeared until the Apple//e in 1983. I don't recall the original Apple][s having the open and closed apple keys - or arrow keys, for that matter.

--
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Re:Was it first? by American+AC+in+Paris · 2003-09-30 04:07 · Score: 1

...don't forget the control-open apple-closed apple-reset key combo that ran the computer through it's system tests, culminating with the mysterious "KERNEL OK" message.
Man, it pissed my parents off when I did that. Sounded like a dentist's drill being dragged across a chalkboard.

--
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Re:Was it first? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:15 · Score: 0

The Apple ][ and ][+ had a RESET key which did the same thing as control-openapple-reset on later models. And it was conveniently located right next to the Return key, for maximum data loss efficiency.
Re:Was it first? by Hugh+George+Asm · 2003-09-30 04:17 · Score: 3, Interesting

..or was the Apple ]['s openapple-control-reset first? I know that the Apple ][ came out in 1977, but I'm not sure if it had implemented the three-key sequence yet or if it had borrowed that idea from the alt-ctrl-delete that was noted here.
Apple ][ Plus shipped with a hard "RESET" button not requiring any additional keys in combination. It had to be pushed pretty hard to make it depress, though. Unfortunately, it was somewhat close to "ESC" and occationally did get hit inadvertantly.
Then on the Apple ][e they fixed this problem by making the key-sequence be open-apple/reset in combination. You could catch this interrupt in software though, and ignore it. From a basic program, you could cause this interrupt to kill the program, reboot, or be ignored. It was just a few POKEs.
Re:Was it first? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:20 · Score: 0

IIRC, the original Apple ][ and ][+ restarted on a CTRL-RESET. This same keystroke combination on a //e exited to a command prompt.
Re:Was it first? by metatruk · 2003-09-30 04:26 · Score: 1

The Apple //e was the first Apple // to support the control-openapple-reset sequence to restart the machine... This machine came out in 1983.

IIRC, the //e was the first Apple // to have an "apple" key on the keyboard.

on the //e, functionally, the "closed" and "open" Apple keys did the same thing that the two joystick buttons did, so they weren't really used as modifiers at the time since they would have had to been handled differently. I might be wrong, though.

I think that Apple released a second version of the //e that had a completely different keyboard, complete with numeric keypad, and "command" and "option" keys identical to the keyboard of a Macintosh or //c instead of the regular closed and open apple keys.
Re:Was it first? by tuffy · 2003-09-30 04:38 · Score: 1

I think that Apple released a second version of the //e that had a completely different keyboard, complete with numeric keypad, and "command" and "option" keys identical to the keyboard of a Macintosh or //c instead of the regular closed and open apple keys.

That was the Apple //e Platinum.

--
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Re:Was it first? by The+Iconoclast · 2003-09-30 04:44 · Score: 1

Later to be renamed Apple //e eXtreme!!1~`11! ;-P

--
Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati
Re:Was it first? by chiph · 2003-09-30 05:55 · Score: 1

On the first few models of Apple ]['s the spring on the reset key was the same strength as all the other keys on the keyboard. I believe they switched to the stronger spring when the 48k Apple ][ came out.

Some of my programs would occasionally trap the reset key (errant pointer), so you'd have to use the power-off switch on the back of the computer. I hated to do that, as it was well known that flipping the power switch too often would cause power supply failure.

Chip H.
Re:Was it first? by MightyYar · 2003-09-30 06:32 · Score: 1

or was the Apple ]['s openapple-control-reset first?

I know the keys first appeared on the Apple ///, but I'm not sure if that button combination worked. If it did then you are talking spring of 1980. The Apple ][+ did not have them, but the //e did. If the //e was the first appearance then that wasn't until 1983.

--
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Re:Was it first? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 07:01 · Score: 0

My old apple //c's had the open/closed apples, but did not respond to the reboot sequence.
Re:Was it first? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 09:05 · Score: 0

What was the key combination on the Apple IIGS that played back a really fuzzy sounding "Apple Too" message while a very crappy digitized image of the "development team" appeared on screen?

Wow, this is really bad article.... by malakai · 2003-09-30 03:54 · Score: 5, Insightful

It was not a memorable event," said Bradley, a longtime IBM employee, speaking of that day in 1980 or '81 when he discovered control-alt-delete.
...

He's much too modest. Would Alexander Fleming have said, "It wasn't a memorable event," when he discovered penicillin? Would Albert Einstein have said, "I really can't recall when I discovered E=MC squared?"

uh huh...

Bradley chose the control and alt keys because he needed two shift keys to make the operation work, and he chose the delete key because it was on the opposite side of the keyboard. He didn't want people to hit control-alt-delete by accident.

It's more complicated than that, of course, but most people don't have a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Purdue University, as Bradley does

oh please. He picked a key sequence that's difficult to accidentally set off. So what? It could have been shift-esc-break. If this is what a Ph.D. in electrical engineering is good for, I'm glad I don't have mine.

And the reason MS used it for login in NT 3.1 was for security. It negated the possibility of a impersonation client that displayed an image which looked like the NT 3.1 login, but just stole Passwords instead. If such a client was written to DOS or Windows it would simple reboot. So it was a sanity check, at the time.

--
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage

Re:BARRY BONDS by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 03:55 · Score: 0

Yeah you're right. I mean, have you ever seen GOD hit a 95 mph fastball 450 feet? I don't think so!

IBM Rock Star. by kabocox · 2003-09-30 03:55 · Score: 3, Funny

"I actually have a real job, but I enjoy doing this," Bradley says. "I'm as close as you get to a rock star within IBM."

That's just what the world needs IBM Rockstars. All he needs are groupies.

Re:IBM Rock Star. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:24 · Score: 0

He already has one - and her screen name is

ALT-META-BANG-BANG
Re:IBM Rock Star. by OS24Ever · 2003-09-30 05:56 · Score: 1

and yet somehow over 500 comments have been generated in just a few ours, he doesn't have groupies?

--
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
Re:IBM Rock Star. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 09:26 · Score: 0

"Rock stars...is there anything they _don't_ know?"
--Homer Simpson

Heh I thought of this CTRL-ALT-DEL by bazik · 2003-09-30 03:55 · Score: 2, Informative

When I read 'the guy responsible for Ctrl-Alt-Del", I thought you ment Tim Buckly - author of the awesome Ctrl-Alt-Del Webcomic Series.

I love this Comic :)

--

--
One by one the penguins steal my sanity...

Re:Heh I thought of this CTRL-ALT-DEL by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:19 · Score: 0
... author of the awesome Ctrl-Alt-Del Webcomic Series.

com-ic (adj.)
1. Characteristic of or having to do with comedy.
2. Of or relating to comic strips.
3. Amusing; humorous
I guess it qualifies based on number 2 ... but fails miserably on 1 and 3.
Re:Heh I thought of this CTRL-ALT-DEL by Sir+Haxalot · 2003-09-30 04:32 · Score: 1

I have an email from him sitting in my email account, I win :D

--
I have over 70 freaks, do you?
Re:Heh I thought of this CTRL-ALT-DEL by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:41 · Score: 0

I'm with you 99%.

feature? by aaron_ds · 2003-09-30 03:55 · Score: 1

A mistake that actually turned up as a feature? Who would have thought ;)

Well thanks... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 03:55 · Score: 0

Being a sysadmin, I now know who to hate every time an end user has "helped" by pressing ctrl+alt+delete the last time something froze.

The guy David Bradley was hired to replace... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 03:55 · Score: 0

...was a real idiot. He had picked the spacebar for the same function! This guy's code was so bad the spacebar was a natural choice for him. IIRC he is working for Microsoft now in QA.

He'd not see another dollar. by zapp · 2003-09-30 03:56 · Score: 1

In most cases the company he works for would own the pattent - and since he worked at IBM at the time, I'm sure that would be the case.

Sure, some companies have bonuses for every pattent you file for them, but they still own the rights to it, and then get allllllll the money. He gets a few grand.

--
no comment

Slow news day? by duren686 · 2003-09-30 03:56 · Score: 1

Wow, this guy invented a soft-reset key sequence and made it hard to press by accident</dramatic>? Stop the presses.

--
Y2K Compliant since the late 1890s

Re:first post by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 03:57 · Score: 0, Interesting

I prefer alt-control-delete. More alphabetical, and the mono-syllable alt isn't sandwhiched between multi-syllable words.

Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by legLess · 2003-09-30 03:58 · Score: 5, Informative

...certainly not to have Windows users change their passwords or logoff.

Many people rag on this, but it actually made some sense at the time. Microsoft has removed it from later versions of Windows for convenience, not security, purposes.

For people who don't know, WIndows NT 4 (and perhaps 3.5 and earlier?) required one to hit CTRL-ALT-DEL to get a login prompt. Many people complained, not seeing the logic in it, but logic there is.

CTRL-ALT-DEL is can never, ever be trapped by an application -- unless Windows has hosed completely, it's guaranteed to get the OS's attention. Having to hit it to get a login box means that no other application can fake a login box. If they tried, CTRL-ALT-DEL would bring up the task manager instead of a login dialog.

So regardless of whether you like it, the minor annoyance served a good purpose and was actually a fairly clever design decision. Much smarter than, oh, allowing macro viruses to execute by default.

--
This isn't as much "normalization" as it is "don't take so many drugs when you're designing tables."

Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by Mr.+Slippery · 2003-09-30 04:12 · Score: 2, Informative

CTRL-ALT-DEL is can never, ever be trapped by an application -- unless Windows has hosed completely, it's guaranteed to get the OS's attention.

That's called a "secure attention key (SAK)". It's an old idea, found on many different systems - a key or key sequence that can't be intercepted and is guaranteed to reach the "trusted computing base (TCB)".

--
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by oldmacdonald · 2003-09-30 04:12 · Score: 1

It's more than a minor annoyance if you use different OS's on a regular basis. Nothing like having the habit of hitting CTRL-ALT-DEL to login and instead rebooting your machine. Is it any wonder uses complained when that first came out?
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by Telcontar · 2003-09-30 04:14 · Score: 4, Interesting

Your reasoning does not apply to Windows NT4, as DirectX allows application to intercept any key combination, including the three-finger salute.

The same goes for remote desktop applications such as "PC anywhere" etc.

So it really is a major annoyance and serves no purpose.
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by thebatlab · 2003-09-30 04:18 · Score: 1

"So regardless of whether you like it, the minor annoyance served a good purpose and was actually a fairly clever design decision. Much smarter than, oh, allowing macro viruses to execute by default"

And in putting that line in you went from what was likely to be a -1 Troll/Flamebait/Offtopic to +5 Informative. Well done :)
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by ENOENT · 2003-09-30 04:21 · Score: 1

...the minor annoyance served a good purpose and was actually a fairly clever design decision.

Yeah, almost as clever as dragging a disk icon to the trash if you want to eject it. As a very wise man once said, "There's a fine line between stupid and clever."

--
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by XSforMe · 2003-09-30 04:22 · Score: 1

You use differente OSes, and you find hitting CTRL-ALT-DEL to log annoying?!?!?!? I would understand inconsistent desktops, inconsistent ways of handling applications, inconsistent ways of configuring the system, inconsistent file formats but having to hit CTRL-ALT-DEL to get a log prompt is definetly way down on my list of annoyances when it comes to handling different OSes.

--
My other OS is the MCP!
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by pHDNgell · 2003-09-30 04:24 · Score: 2, Interesting

CTRL-ALT-DEL is can never, ever be trapped by an application

I mapped it to something like ``xset s activate'' on my Linux box. I kinda laugh every time I hit it just because I think it's funny that I mapped my lock to a key combination that ``can't be trapped by an application.''

--
-- The world is watching America, and America is watching TV.
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by radish · 2003-09-30 04:26 · Score: 2, Informative

Errmmm...maybe I'm using some other Windows, but here I have to press Ctrl-Alt-Del to login to my W2K and XP boxes too. Did I miss something? You say they removed it? Err?

ps. I know you can set an auto-logon into the registry, but that hack does more than disable Ctrl-Alt-Del, and works on very old versions.

--
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:31 · Score: 0

It's a group policy setting; you can turn it on or off.

By default, if an XP box is a member of a domain it'll require CTRL+ALT+DEL to logon. If it's not on a domain (and you don't have the nasty 'fast user switching' enabled) then the logon box will appear without that key combo.
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:34 · Score: 0

That's the story from Microsoft, but it really doesn't hold up.
I think they just think it was funny watching user reboot other machines. I've had users walk around a room looking for a "working" computer, rebooting each one.
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by CritterNYC · 2003-09-30 04:37 · Score: 1

Errmmm...maybe I'm using some other Windows, but here I have to press Ctrl-Alt-Del to login to my W2K and XP boxes too. Did I miss something? You say they removed it? Err?

Actually Ctrl-Alt-Del is disabled by default in Windows 2000 and Windows XP. You can enable both with a registry key or a setting. (Most corporate installs do this, from what I've seen) It was disabled for convenience, but can be re-enabled for "security". Also of note... enabling Ctrl-Alt-Del precludes use of the pretty Windows XP welcome screen.

--
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by beggarstune · 2003-09-30 04:41 · Score: 1

CTRL-ALT-DEL is can never, ever be trapped by an application

DEC's VAX/VMS did this years before that with the Break key. Maybe Dave Cutler merely ported an existing idea to his new job.

--
(S+C) x (B+F)/T = V
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by sukotto · 2003-09-30 04:50 · Score: 1

Wow... a non-negative comment about Trusted Computing that didn't get modded down.
What is the world coming to?

--
Come play free flash games on Kongregate!
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by malloc · 2003-09-30 04:51 · Score: 3, Insightful

Your reasoning does not apply to Windows NT4, as DirectX allows application to intercept any key combination, including the three-finger salute.
His reasoning was, "it actually made some sense at the time." I.e. *before* DirectX came out.
The same goes for remote desktop applications such as "PC anywhere" etc.

I've used PC/Anywhere (v8-10) a fair amount and have seen no such thing. In fact I've observed exactly opposite your point. PC/Anywhere has a special button to generate a CTRL-ALT-DEL on the remote host specifically because it can't hook your local CTRL-ALT-DEL.

Now, is it useful anymore, no, but I don't see why people are complaining so much. You get used to hitting three keys once in a while instead of clicking 'Login' or what have you.
-Malloc

--
___________________ I want to be free()!
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by Zak3056 · 2003-09-30 04:52 · Score: 1

Did I miss something? You say they removed it? Err?

The grandparent is mistaken--they (obviously, since you use it) did not remove it. However, you can DISABLE the requirement to press ctrl-alt-del to login in a local or domain security policy.

The key sequence is still trapped by windows after login, and presents a menu to logoff, shutdown, change password, etc.

--
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by babyrat · 2003-09-30 04:53 · Score: 1

Errmmm...maybe I'm using some other Windows, but here I have to press Ctrl-Alt-Del to login to my W2K and XP boxes too. Did I miss something? You say they removed it? Err?

Nope you are using the same windows. You can turn off the CTL-ALT-DEL requirement in XP (and 2000) a couple of different ways (as usual).

Security Policy: control panel > administrative tools > then either domain or local security policy. Go into Security Setting > Local Policies > Security Options and find the Disable CTRL + ALT + DEL requirement for logon and set it to disabled.

OR

under control panel > user accounts > advanced tab > secure logon section > require users to press ctrl+alt+delete checkkbox
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by AdEbh · 2003-09-30 04:56 · Score: 1

He was talking about Windows. The hint, and I know it was subtle, was it was the only OS he mentioned.
Don't know why you are laughing when you press CTRL-ALT-DEL. The fact that Linux can't exclusively trap CTRL-ALT-DEL is in fact a security flaw.
- Ebh
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:10 · Score: 0

well perhaps it was a marketing move hinting to NT stability.
I mean, in the past hitting CTRL-ALT-DEL was a sad practice after a BSOD, with NT it was used to log in...
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by Epistax · 2003-09-30 05:16 · Score: 1

VM Ware seems to notice control-alt-delete easy enough. It doesn't try to stop the message, but it tells you to type a different combo for the virtual machine.

Somewhat unrelated, but a response to others: In Win2k at least, there is a switch to set whether control alt delete must be pressed on bootup. Perhaps you can in XP?
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by dissy · 2003-09-30 05:22 · Score: 1

> I mapped it to something like ``xset s activate'' on my Linux box. I kinda laugh
> every time I hit it just because I think it's funny that I mapped my lock to a
> key combination that ``can't be trapped by an application.''

I dont see why you think its funny, since its still not trapped by an application at all :)

The kernel traps it. It sends a signal to init to let it know the 3 keys have been hit. init then runs a program.

Not once in that process of events does 'xset' ever trap the key combo.
The kernel is trapping it, and passing it on. To prove my point, disable that in the kernel and see how far you get when init doesnt ever get told control-alt-del has been hit.

Its sorta like saying you are allowed free access to my house, after I let you stay there one night in the past. Never forget its still me letting you, not you doing so on your own. Same with the kernel.
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by blair1q · 2003-09-30 05:23 · Score: 1

They chose it because it was unlikely to be in use by any application program written for any Windows platform.

"Backwards compatibility" is the enemy of clean design.
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by oldmacdonald · 2003-09-30 05:33 · Score: 1

I find those things to be annoying. I find it a disaster waiting to happen to train people to hit a key combination that on other systems causes a reboot. This was especially true at the time Microsoft first starting using it for login.
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:44 · Score: 0

No, that isn't exactly true. It is possible for a DirectX application to intercept it.
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by pHDNgell · 2003-09-30 05:50 · Score: 1

The kernel traps it. It sends a signal to init to let it know the 3 keys have been hit. init then runs a program.

Um, no it doesn't, I mapped it like any other key sequence in my window manager. I do the same thing in NetBSD (which doesn't have the ugly init hack).

--
-- The world is watching America, and America is watching TV.
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by Mr+Smidge · 2003-09-30 06:00 · Score: 1

...certainly not to have Windows users change their passwords or logoff.

I think that describing the process of hitting Ctrl-Alt-Del as "logging off" is a rather loose term, don't you think?
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by jpu8086 · 2003-09-30 06:27 · Score: 1

Windows claims that CTRL-ATL-DEL can't be trapped by and program but itself. But infact, CTRL-ATL-DEL can be trapped by user apps in Windows. However, I don't know much about Windows to answer how a user app can trap that key combination.

Don't believe me? Well, neither did I believe it myself when I first saw it. Go to you the nearest Best Buy and start messing with the laptops/desktops. They have an app running on top of XP that shows how great the computer is and why you shoud buy from Besy Buy (blah, blah, blah). Now hit CTRL-ALT-DEL. nothing happens. The program running on top on those BB Win XP machines seem to trap the fearsome key combination. At first, I was like this thing probably doesn't run Windows.

But it does. I asked one of the the employees to let me verify the system specs by using the Windows tools, and he clicked on a concealed area of the screen that minimized the program. Viola, it was running stock XP! With all the junk that comes with new laptops. So, it wasn't even modified XP.

Anyone know how this works? Because I suppose those trojans/spyware programs can do the same.

--
now supporting:
cmdrTaco for president '04
michael for oval office intern summer '05
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by Keeper · 2003-09-30 07:04 · Score: 3, Insightful

DirectX allows application to intercept any key combination, including the three-finger salute.

Please show me how you can intercept ctrl-alt-del using DirectX. All of the documentation I've seen indicates that it can't be done. The lack of login-screen spoofing apps would tend to back the documented side of things.

It is possible to capture ctrl-alt-del on Win9x, however I haven't seen a way to do it using DirectX on Win9x.
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by Enucite · 2003-09-30 07:19 · Score: 1

On Windows 2000 you can hit CTRL-ALT-DEL and it brings up a dialog box. The middle button on the top row is "Log Off".
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by boresicle · 2003-09-30 07:31 · Score: 0

It's turned on by default when you join a domain.
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by Heutchy · 2003-09-30 07:35 · Score: 1

Nope, sorry. DirectInput (at least in current versions, I would assume this is also true under NT4) does not allow you to trap Ctrl+Alt+Del. It is trapped at a lower level than DirectX, specifically for the reason given above.
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by Mr+Smidge · 2003-09-30 08:00 · Score: 1

I think you missed the joke..
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by Foresto · 2003-09-30 08:11 · Score: 1

"Actually Ctrl-Alt-Del is disabled by default..."
IIRC, you can hit c-a-d twice to get the old behavior even when it's "disabled".
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 08:18 · Score: 0

I think it wasn't funny.
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by 1g$man · 2003-09-30 08:28 · Score: 1

If an XP box isn't hooked up to a domain, then CTRL+ALT+DEL only brings up the task manager, not the Windows Security dialog box. So, either task manager showed up when it was pressed, just showed up in the background since BestBuy's app was on top, or they just deleted taskmgr.exe (requires disabling Windows File Protection) so nothing comes up when it is pressed.
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by Jetifi · 2003-09-30 08:52 · Score: 1

Wow... a non-negative comment about Trusted Computing that didn't get modded down.

"Trusted Computing" was around for a long time before MS hijacked the term. The TCB as a concept was first described in 1972. See this e2 node.
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by Enucite · 2003-09-30 08:57 · Score: 1

I'm sorry, I (wrongly) assumed you were of the average slashdot intelligence, and thus didn't really know anything about what they were saying and were trying to make a witty comment based on a lack of knowledge.

My apologies :)
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by evilviper · 2003-09-30 10:25 · Score: 1

His reasoning was, "it actually made some sense at the time." I.e. *before* DirectX came out.

Umm, I don't think there was a time that Windows required Ctrl+Alt+Delete, before DirectX came about. I know it existed when NT4 came out.

Now, is it useful anymore, no,

The CTRL+ALT+DELETE combo is still required... I don't imagine they are just throwing up completely pointless barriers.

--
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 10:26 · Score: 0

The fact that Linux can't exclusively trap CTRL-ALT-DEL is in fact a security flaw.

No it isn't -- The "Secure Attention Key" on Linux is ALT-SYSRQ-K. CTRL-ALT-DEL is just any other key sequence.
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 14:14 · Score: 0

Umm, I don't think there was a time that Windows required Ctrl+Alt+Delete, before DirectX came about. I know it existed when NT4 came out.

Right. And where was DirectX when NT 3.5 came out? Also, where was DirectX for NT4 when NT4 came out? Nowhere, that's where.
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by malloc · 2003-10-01 01:51 · Score: 1

Umm, I don't think there was a time that Windows required Ctrl+Alt+Delete, before DirectX came about. I know it existed when NT4 came out.

As the AC, whom no one will see, said:

"Right. And where was DirectX when NT 3.5 came out? Also, where was DirectX for NT4 when NT4 came out? Nowhere, that's where."
-Malloc

--
___________________ I want to be free()!
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by evilviper · 2003-10-01 15:53 · Score: 1

"Right. And where was DirectX when NT 3.5 came out? Also, where was DirectX for NT4 when NT4 came out? Nowhere, that's where."

And where was DirectX when Windows 2000 came out? Where was DirectX when XP came out?

Oh, yeah, that's right, it was alive and well, but Windows 2000 still came with the CTRL+ALT+Delete requirement.

--
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by Anonymous Coward · 2003-10-01 16:15 · Score: 0

Stop trying to shift the argument. The original post claimed that the requirement was bogus for NT4 because DirectX let you disable it - this isn't true.

Also, you can disable the Ctrl-Alt-Del requirement under Win2k. But by that time, millions of people had already learned that that was the way to log on, and that it was a 'security feature'.
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by malloc · 2003-10-02 05:29 · Score: 1

And where was DirectX when Windows 2000 came out? Where was DirectX when XP came out?

Now you're forgetting the "at the time" part again.

The thesis of this whole thread is that at the time it made some technical sense, but your posts keep talking about the present, as if because it doesn't make sense now, it could never have made sense in the beginning.
-Malloc

--
___________________ I want to be free()!
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by evilviper · 2003-10-02 20:48 · Score: 1

your posts keep talking about the present, as if because it doesn't make sense now, it could never have made sense in the beginning.

Not at all. I am saying, it must make sense now, otherwise it would not continue to be included.

--
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by Eunuchswear · 2003-10-03 01:02 · Score: 1

Microsoft has removed it from later versions of Windows for convenience, not security, purposes.

If Microsoft had removed it from later versions of Windows that would have been stupid.

Since they didn't remove it from Windows...

--
Watch this Heartland Institute video
Re:Windows' use of CTRL-ALT-DEL by malloc · 2003-10-03 04:24 · Score: 1

Well, I could easily see it carrying on, like so many other things, simply because changing your UI for no good reason is a Bad Thing.

-Malloc

--
___________________ I want to be free()!

Of course we all know..... by FreeLinux · 2003-09-30 03:58 · Score: 1

that Linux has no need or use for the evil Ctrl+Alt+Del or Ctrl+Alt+Bkspc.

Isn't it wonderful.

Re:Of course we all know..... by merdark · 2003-09-30 04:07 · Score: 1

Yeah, Linux is sooo much more leet, you have to hit the reset key when it crashes like a real man!
Re:Of course we all know..... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:13 · Score: 0

It was a joke, goofball. My ctl-alt-del is keyed to shutdown and reboot Linux cleanly. Ctl-alt-bskpc kills X.
Re:Of course we all know..... by steeler359 · 2003-09-30 04:15 · Score: 1

...Unless your X server has crashed and you wish to get back to a command prompt, of course. But we all knew that, didnt we?

--
There's no place like /~
Re:Of course we all know..... by TrancePhreak · 2003-09-30 04:15 · Score: 1

When I ran Linux, Ctrl+Alt+Bkspc was an hourly key press. Sometimes more often. Any OS is only as stable as the software you run on it, and X is one hella unstable piece of software.

--

-]Phreak Out[-
Re:Of course we all know..... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:32 · Score: 0

In Emacs ctrl-alt-backspace removes the preceding expression. It's actually kind of logical, since most movement and delete keys work on code expressions when pressed together with ctrl+alt. This is why I always take care to set the DontZap option in XFree86 configuration, to disable the ctrl-alt-backspace feature. ctrl-alt-delete is not a problem for me since I don't regularly use any of the keys right of enter, they are too far away for fast typing.
Re:Of course we all know..... by starfish23 · 2003-09-30 04:40 · Score: 1

Sounds like you have some bad computer mojo. I get roughly one X crash per year, and it's usually my fault.

starfish
Re:Of course we all know..... by Alien+Being · 2003-09-30 04:41 · Score: 1

"Any OS is only as stable as the software you run on it"
I think your brain needs a reboot.

"X is one hella unstable piece of software"
Maybe. I never used X. I only use X.
Re:Of course we all know..... by Cro+Magnon · 2003-09-30 05:57 · Score: 1

Must've been a long time ago. I haven't had any problems with X, KDE, or Mozilla in ages!

--
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Re:Of course we all know..... by TrancePhreak · 2003-09-30 08:04 · Score: 1

I tried to play games and such. This was about 4 years ago.

--

-]Phreak Out[-

On a mission... by Stingr · 2003-09-30 03:59 · Score: 0

Bradley, who speaks at universities on IBM's behalf, is on a mission...

a mission from God.

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

--
Chaos reigns within.
Reflect, repent, and reboot.
Order shall return.

Money maker.. by grub · 2003-09-30 03:59 · Score: 3, Funny

If he could come up with a micro-payment plan for using his idea he could make millions off the Windows users in a couple of months.

--
Trolling is a art,

Re:Money maker.. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:36 · Score: 0

If he could come up with a micro-payment plan for using his idea he could make millions off the Windows users in a couple of months.
months? you mean minutes, don't you? Even at 1/10000000 of a cent per use...

exactly by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 03:59 · Score: 5, Insightful

Bradley says the "strength of the country" is at stake because relatively few students go into science or technology

Why should they when engineers can't find jobs, salesmen are making 6 figures and MBAs are stealing all the money.

Re:exactly by Anne+Thwacks · 2003-09-30 04:17 · Score: 1

Why should they when engineers can't find jobs, salesmen are making 6 figures and MBAs are stealing all the money.
If you ever find the answer to this, mail it to me on the back of a $50 bill

--
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Re:exactly by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 08:29 · Score: 0

Why should they when engineers can't find jobs, salesmen are making 6 figures and MBAs are stealing all the money.

Someone needs to plan and build the prison space.
Re:exactly by psykocrime · 2003-09-30 08:48 · Score: 1

If you ever find the answer to this, mail it to me on the back of a $50 bill And when he does, please transcribe the answer onto the back of a one hundred dollar bill and forward it to me....

--
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig

I'm not impressed... by blackmonday · 2003-09-30 04:00 · Score: 1, Funny

My great grandfather Juan Manuel Vasquez De La Pena invented the Scroll Lock key. Where would you be without that?

Re:I'm not impressed... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:24 · Score: 0

Been using computers my whole life- and I still can't figure it out...

WFT is the scroll lock for?
Re:I'm not impressed... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:27 · Score: 0

Does scroll lock even DO anything except make the light come on on the keyboard? Only thing I've ever seen was a game that used it to save screenshots... Why scroll lock when print screen is right next door, I don't know. I guess because print screen was "load last save" for some reason.
Re:I'm not impressed... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:39 · Score: 0

You just made that up, didn't you? Everyone in .uk knows that the Scroll Lock key was invented in 1867 by Sebastian Crolllock of Sussex, England, as a way to prevent thieves from stealing his magical scrolls from his steam-powered typewriter while he was in the bathroom. The invention did not reach widespread use at the time, but it was resurrected by IBM wizards in the early sixties, and we've been living with the key ever since. To think, all this came about simply because a Victorian gentleman had this habit of taking really long bathroom breaks... which nicely ties us back to the present-day slashdot discussion.
Re:I'm not impressed... by Tisephone · 2003-09-30 07:23 · Score: 0

Well, BSD users scroll back on the console by hitting it and working the PgUp/PgDwn keys.

--
"Neque enim lex est aequior ulla, quam necis artifices arte perire sua."
Re:I'm not impressed... by parkanoid · 2003-09-30 10:38 · Score: 1

For those confused about the purpose of scoll lock: It was used (and is still used) for, surprisingly enough, preventing a terminal screen from scrolling, and to switch the way in which cursor keys worked.

For instance, try hitting scroll lock on a BSD-based system; the output of text to the terminal will stop, and you can scroll through the history using pgup/pgdown and the cursor.
Re:I'm not impressed... by PenguiN42 · 2003-09-30 14:50 · Score: 1

I use multitrack/midi sequencing software (Sonar) that uses it to toggle whether the window follows the cursor when you're playing back the song or not.

--
The following sentence is true. The preceding sentence was false.
Re:I'm not impressed... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 15:29 · Score: 0

are you in the fukin 60's you queer ass llama

Easy on a modern keyboard by bluGill · 2003-09-30 04:00 · Score: 1, Funny

On the origional XP keyboard it was hard to hit accidently. On a modern 101 key keybaord, with num-lock turned off you can get it accidently, as I discovered one night in a lab when I removed a keyboard from a shelf and rebooted the machine. (I hope noone else was using it for something - it was a weekend and a test lab, but even still I don't like thinking about what I could have done to someone's test that fails on time in 100 hours)

Ummm... by TheShadow · 2003-09-30 04:00 · Score: 5, Informative

Why is it that everyone thinks that Ctrl-Alt-Del has some special hardware interrupt, or something else that makes it magical?

The BIOS traps that combination (through the normal keyboard interrupt) and initiates a system reboot.

Problem is, if your OS isn't using the BIOS for keyboard input (pretty much every modern OS uses it's own keyboard handling code) then the OS determines what this key combination does.

In either case, it is software that determines what that key combination does.

--

--
"What do you want me to do? Whack a guy? Off a guy? Whack off a guy? Cause I'm married."

Something Windows NT did right by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:01 · Score: 2, Interesting

The use of ctrl-alt-del to login to or unlock windows NT, and to change the password was one of the things Windows NT did right. On x86 hardware ctrl-alt-del generates a harware interrupt. So it always traps into the OS. This helps prevent trojan login screens and such.

I can write an app that looks just like the NT login that will e-mail me all passwords and present the user with an 'incorrect password' dialog. And maybe make it exit so the user next sees the nornal login tool to make it less suspicious. However, I can't write an app to trap the ctrl-alt-del, so it doesn't work.

Re:Something Windows NT did right by Wumpus · 2003-09-30 05:46 · Score: 1

On x86 hardware ctrl-alt-del generates a harware interrupt.

That may be technically true, but not in a meaningful way. Any key press generates a hardware interrupt. It's up to the OS to decide what to do with it, and ctrl-alt-del has no special meaning beyond what the OS does with it.

However, I can't write an app to trap the ctrl-alt-del, so it doesn't work.

Somebody posted a way to do just that somewhere here. Look for it.
Re:Something Windows NT did right by ziggles · 2003-09-30 06:55 · Score: 1

If Windows NT could do it, what's to stop someone from copying what NT did?
Re:Something Windows NT did right by spitzak · 2003-09-30 10:48 · Score: 1

Ctrl+alt+del generates the *same* hardware interrupt as any other key. The difference is in what the Windows keyboard driver does with those keystrokes after it gets them.

I would say that this scheme works as I have not heard of a password-stealing program for Windows.

Though I would think a program that displays the login box (as though Ctrl+alt+del was already pushed) would fool a lot of people into typing in their password.

It makes me wonder... by DerProfi · 2003-09-30 04:01 · Score: 1

If the guy responsible for Ctrl-Alt-Del got in a fight with the guy responsible for Hit Any Key, who would win??

I've got $50 that says it's Mr. Hit Any Key. Takers?

--

3000+ comments meta-modded. 0 mod points awarded.
Lesson for other meta-suckers: Don't believe the hype!

Re:It makes me wonder... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:19 · Score: 0

It'd be a three way fight, what with the Amiga's Ctrl-left Amiga-right Amiga combo - commonly known as the Vulcan Nerve Pinch because it was 'logical'.

Spectrum 'any key' adventures were much less fun - it always said 'Hit A Key'... yup, you guessed what people did...
Re:It makes me wonder... by badansible · 2003-09-30 04:21 · Score: 1

Easy one. ctrl-alt-del
Re:It makes me wonder... by AveryT · 2003-09-30 04:30 · Score: 1

As opposed to the Vulcan Death Grip which, as everyone knows, is the CTRL SHIFT / F12 (/ being the one on the numeric keypad) combination used to reset the graphics pipe on an SGI workstation.
Re:It makes me wonder... by Pope · 2003-09-30 04:40 · Score: 1

Aha! That's the one I was just trying to remember to tell my coworker about. Thanks.

--
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Re:It makes me wonder... by caluml · 2003-09-30 05:45 · Score: 1

I can't remember if I saw this on Slashdot - so here is is again.
Any-key explanation

--
Get your own free personal location tracker
Re:It makes me wonder... by EddWo · 2003-09-30 12:56 · Score: 1

Erm. Look at the parent you just replied to.
You see "Hit Any Key [slashdot.org]" is a link to a Slashdot story from 10 days ago?
And what was the subject of that story?

"ricembr noted that compaq has finally provided a FAQ to the world to ask that long standing question where is the any key? Pray that this was added to the FAQ as a joke, and not in response to legitimate need ;)"

Which contains a link to exactly the same page you just linked to.
The story generated 369 comments.
That means your comment was -1 Redundant

Thanks for playing
HAND

--
"Taligent is still pure vapor. Maybe they'll be the last who jumps up on Openstep... "

Thank God He Didn't Choose S - C - O by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:01 · Score: 0

or we would be paying $699+ every time we wanted to reboot...

Congratulations! You are teh win! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:02 · Score: 0

I one-finger salute you!

ps : first GOAT!

Rumour has it... by swordgeek · 2003-09-30 04:02 · Score: 3, Insightful

...that the real reason Microsoft used Ctrl-Alt-Del for the NT login was that everyone was already familiar with it.

(Yeah, it's a hardcoded interrupt, but in protected mode that's pretty much irrelevant)

--

"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban

Re:-1, JEALOUS BASTARD WITH SMALL DICK by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:02 · Score: 0

With all of the steroids he takes, I'm sure Bonds is the one with the small dick.

Amen by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:02 · Score: 0

Amen brutha... oh fuck, sorry brb need to reboot my lunix b0x3n

Three finger salute by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:02 · Score: 0

He picked a key sequence that couldn't be hit by accident *BUT* which is also easy to smash with the three finger salute.... :)

Re:Wow, this is really bad article.... by merdark · 2003-09-30 04:02 · Score: 1

"If such a client was written to DOS or Windows it would simple reboot. So it was a sanity check, at the time."

Hmm, I just realized that this probably wouldn't work though. I remember when I used to code for DOS, I'd often replace the keyboard handler with my own (so I could access multiple keys at once). I'm not sure if CTRL-ALT-DEL worked anymore once I did that.

I guess it would still stop simple front-ends.

Win NT by siskbc · 2003-09-30 04:03 · Score: 1

If such a client was written to DOS or Windows it would simple reboot. So it was a sanity check, at the time.

Interesting. Is it *absolutely* impossible for any program other than the operating system to grab the CTL-ALT-DEL combo? Clearly Windows grabs it, as pressing CTL-ALT-DEL only brings up task manager.

--

-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat

Re:Win NT by arkanes · 2003-09-30 04:14 · Score: 1

Any userland program, yes. Ctrl-Alt-Delete is a special hardware interrupt that the kernel handles itself and won't pass on to userspace. I'm not even sure if a kernel mode driver can get it. At least under NT based Windows, I believe theres ways you can trap it under 95/98.
Re:Win NT by malakai · 2003-09-30 04:21 · Score: 1

No, not impossible. But slightly more difficult.

Which is why many people didn't like the ctrl-alt-del sequence, and why Win2000 and XP drop it by default (you can regedit it back).

ctrl-alt-del causes a hardware interrupt. This allows the operating system first chance at it before your code has a chance. This is circumnavigated by switching modes on the processor.

I'm not a fan of it, but I've done it for the past 10 years multiple times a day to log on or off (winnt 3.1 beta '93 to now, jesus thats a long time). It's a zen thing, i have to do it, with my coffee, or something isn't right the rest of the day.

I'm addicted to ctrl-alt-del.

--
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
Re:Win NT by cwj123 · 2003-09-30 04:30 · Score: 2, Informative

By default it isn't enabled only if you aren't logging on to a windows domain controller (just the local computer). If your in a corporate setting normally you are and having to press Ctrl-Alt-Del remains in full effect...
Re:Win NT by Kombat · 2003-09-30 04:40 · Score: 2, Funny

I remember the first time I installed NT 4.0 Workstation on my PC back in university. A friend who'd used it before was helping me, and the first time we booted it, the dialog appeared, advising me to hit CTRL+ALT+DEL to login. Having never heard of this before, my immediate response was to ask my friend, "Huh? CTRL+ALT+DEL to login? How do I reboot? 'Enter'?"

--
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
Re:Win NT by Craig+Davison · 2003-09-30 04:50 · Score: 1

It sends the same interrupt as any other keypress/key combination, so technically all keypresses are handled by the kernel.

As for "won't pass on to userspace", that depends on the OS, and "special hardware interrupt", you're full of shit.

--
Hands in my pocket
Re:Win NT by flink · 2003-09-30 05:02 · Score: 1

I've been told that a DirectX app can grab any key combination, including Ctrl+Alt+Del under NT-based Windows. Not sure if it's true though.
Re:Win NT by Make · 2003-09-30 05:15 · Score: 1

sorry, that's wrong. It's handled by software, no special hardware or interrupt involved. By default, it's handled by the BIOS keyboard driver and performs a soft reboot. The BIOS keyboard driver recognizes Ctrl+Alt+Del by simply testing whether all three keys are pressed - in simple plain software!
Re:Win NT by drinkypoo · 2003-09-30 05:24 · Score: 2, Interesting

In Windows NT, applications do not have access to the vector table (or at least they aren't supposed to, heh heh) so they cannot change the keyboard interrupt handling routine, and they cannot change the behavior of ctrl-alt-del. However, in DOS, any program can indeed alter the vector table, and so you can mask ctrl-alt-del. So actually, it was pretty pointless in terms of protecting you from a Windows NT lookalike written in DOS or Windows 3.1[1], but it will protect you from a program running on Windows NT which does the same thing. In order to change the OS, you will need physical access to the machine in almost all cases, and so this is considered to be a useful security measure.

--
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Re:Win NT by Keeper · 2003-09-30 06:56 · Score: 1

I can find no way to intercept ctl-alt-del, and I have never seen an NT application which was able to do so. I believe it is possible to do so on Win9x however.

It is possible to intercept any other key combination on NT (DirectX basically treats the keyboard as a joystick device), however the three finger salute is treated as a special case that the OS always handles.
Re:Win NT by arkanes · 2003-09-30 07:08 · Score: 1

I'll clarify, since you can't seem to read. It's a hardware interupt thats handled specially by the kernel. Of course it's OS dependent, fuckwit, we're talking about NT here. Userspace applications can NOT trap that sequence. It's possible that a kernel level keyboard driver could, and of course the kernel HAL can (and does).
Re:Win NT by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 07:31 · Score: 0

All keypresses generate a hardware interrupt, and modern operating systems could just as easily trap other key combinations in the keyboard driver.

IIRC ctrl-alt-del does cause a different, additional interrupt, though, but obviously not one that can't be handled.

The equivalent key combination on the Amiga was actually enforced by hardware to cause the machine to reset. However, it was possible to delay it for a few seconds by not finishing the handshake with the keyboard controller. At least on some models, tricks could be used to extend the delay to something like 30 seconds (I saw demos that did that), but I never bothered to figure out what they were.
Re:Win NT by slaida1 · 2003-09-30 18:41 · Score: 1

In Windows NT, applications do not have access to the vector table (or at least they aren't supposed to, heh heh)
Oh how I'm waiting for the day Gates or Ballmer see the light and say(confess?) something along those lines at some conference speech.

--
Preserve old classics: copy your collection onto all hard drives.

Didn't just pick the sequence.... by Brian_Ellenberger · 2003-09-30 04:03 · Score: 1

>He picked a key sequence that's difficult to >accidentally set off. So what? It could have >been shift-esc-break. If this is what a Ph.D. >in electrical engineering is good for, I'm glad >I don't have mine.

He didn't just pick the sequence, but also engineered the hardware to make the interrupts work correctly.

Re:Didn't just pick the sequence.... by Pieroxy · 2003-09-30 04:15 · Score: 1

Dude, there's no hardware in that! It's all software. Or else how would you explain that Ctrl-Alt-Del doesn't reboot computers anymore ?

--
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Re:Didn't just pick the sequence.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:37 · Score: 0

Dude, you're totally wrong.
Re:Didn't just pick the sequence.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:06 · Score: 0

it is hardware. Windows "traps" the keyboard sequence now by getting in between the keyboard and the bios.if you use ctrl/alt/del in any OS that doesn't trap it, it works. Windows is simply interupting the interupt. duh.
Re:Didn't just pick the sequence.... by cbiltcliffe · 2003-09-30 07:06 · Score: 1

Windows is simply interupting the interupt. duh.

Yeah, but it's interrupting a software interrupt. Just because the BIOS is included with a motherboard, doesn't mean it's hardware.

--
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Re:Didn't just pick the sequence.... by Tenareth · 2003-09-30 08:37 · Score: 1

No, it's hardware... really. Last I checked the Keyboard was hardware. There is an actual electrical impulse that goes down the Interrupt chain and is then accepted by the OS. The OS, for those that forget, is the Operating System, it's primary job is to handle the Hardware.

The fact that the OS catches the interrupt doesn't make it magically "software" or that would be like saying the fact that the OS controls writing to the hard drive, the hard drive is software.

--
This sig is the express property of someone.
Re:Didn't just pick the sequence.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 09:13 · Score: 0

Are you daft? Boot your PC _without_ an operating system, once you get the "no system" message, press ctrl-alt-del. Does it reboot?
Re:Didn't just pick the sequence.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 11:42 · Score: 0

Dude, that's because the BIOS is listening for the key sequence. Do you really think that the KEYBOARD CONTROLLER is waiting for those three keys to be pressed and then sending the rest signal to the CPU? Geez...
Re:Didn't just pick the sequence.... by Pieroxy · 2003-09-30 18:46 · Score: 1

Dude, Ctrl-Alt-Del is just like any other key sequence. There is an electric impulse sent for any key pressed, this is the most stupid comment I've ever read!

Hardware is the Reset button in front of your computer. This one you cannot trap. It will reboot (if properly connected) EVERY OS running (actually, anythig running, OS or not). This is what I call a hardware reset.

The fact that makes you think that Ctrl-Alt-Del is hardware is that the default behavior of the BIOS (a piece of software, in ROM, built-in your motherboard) catches it and makes the computer reboot. That is the default behavior of Ctrl-Alt-Del as handled by all BIOSes. That doesn't make it hardware.

--
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Re:Didn't just pick the sequence.... by Pieroxy · 2003-09-30 18:48 · Score: 1

The fact that makes you think that Ctrl-Alt-Del is hardware is that the default behavior of the BIOS (a piece of software, in ROM, built-in your motherboard) catches it and makes the computer reboot. That is the default behavior of Ctrl-Alt-Del as handled by all BIOSes. That doesn't make it hardware.

--
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Re:Didn't just pick the sequence.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 18:51 · Score: 0

We need two acronyms for AC:
The normal AC, Anonymous Coward
You, Anonymous Cretin.
Re:Didn't just pick the sequence.... by cbiltcliffe · 2003-10-01 03:58 · Score: 1

Are you daft? Boot your PC _without_ an operating system,

Boot your PC without a BIOS chip, and tell me what it does when you press Ctrl-Alt-Del. Nothing, right? That's because the software program that is the BIOS of the computer's motherboard is listening for the Ctrl-Alt-Del key combination, and sends the reset signal to the CPU when it detects it.

There's software at a much lower level than the operating system, you know.....

--
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......

Quick! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:03 · Score: 0

Gotta novell server?
simultaneously hit

and QUICKLY leave the room.
You just entered system monitor!

Re:Quick! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:06 · Score: 0

Argh. bloody editor ate my codes.

left-shift
right shift
left-alt
escape
Re:Quick! by cscx · 2003-09-30 04:16 · Score: 1

Ahh yes, alt-shift-shift-esc, brings up the Novell debugger. Only use this as a LAST resort, cause it doesn't cleanly unmount the disk volumes!

It doesn't matter what it is... by Kynde · 2003-09-30 04:04 · Score: 4, Interesting

...but there's a reason why Windoze uses that for logging in. That is, that key combo cannot be intercepted by applications thus making it impossible to create infamous fake logins for grabbing user credentials mere looks-like-login-screen. Naturally such preventive measures could've been done a bit more elegantly than just using ctrl-alt-del to log in, but still, it's a very windowsy way of overcoming obstacles.

In many unix systems however, there are little or no protection for fake-login local attacks, eventhough preventive measures would be quite easy to implement using some key combo deemed ungrabbable by user software (little like say ctrl-alt-backspace is in X). It's all too easy to display a xdm/gdm look-a-like screen on university/public-office displays and grab logins and then display some sort of segfault crap an logout back to the real xdm/gdm. Average (l)user hardly takes much of a notice.

--
1 Earth is warming, 2 It's us, 3 it's royally bad, 4 we need to take action NOW

Re:It doesn't matter what it is... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:10 · Score: 0

I once saw a friend use one hand to CTRL+ALT+DEL. Just thought that was way cool.
Re:It doesn't matter what it is... by jandrese · 2003-09-30 04:26 · Score: 1

I know some guys who whenever they walk up to a Linux box hit ctrl-alt-backspace to kill X and force init to restart xdm for precisely this purpose. It's not so easy to do on Suns though. Besides, sophisticated password grabbers wouldn't put up a coredump message (you never know when a guru is going to come by and figure out what you're up to), they'll just log you in as normal using the name and password you just supplied.

--

I read the internet for the articles.
Re:It doesn't matter what it is... by pHDNgell · 2003-09-30 04:27 · Score: 1

little like say ctrl-alt-backspace is in X

ctl-alt-backspace has no special meaning in X.

--
-- The world is watching America, and America is watching TV.
Re:It doesn't matter what it is... by AArmadillo · 2003-09-30 04:33 · Score: 1

Eh? Ctrl-alt-backspace kills X, unless you have DontZap in your X config file.
Re:It doesn't matter what it is... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:56 · Score: 0

The guy probably meant that it's not something that belongs to the X specification, but a quirk entirely invented by the implementors of Xfree86. You know, the whole X-is-a-vendor-independent-standard thing those other unix users keep nagging about. Whatever, I use linux like everyone else.
Re:It doesn't matter what it is... by AT · 2003-09-30 04:56 · Score: 5, Informative

That is, that key combo cannot be intercepted by applications thus making it impossible to create infamous fake logins for grabbing user credentials mere looks-like-login-screen

This is actually untrue. There are several ways to capture ctrl-alt-del in Windows. One is by remapping the keyboard with the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Keyboard Layout registry entry. This changes the key mappings before the system processes ctrl-alt-del.

The idea of a secure access key is a good one, but MS has a broken implementation since they allow it to be circumvented.
Re:It doesn't matter what it is... by pHDNgell · 2003-09-30 05:56 · Score: 1

The guy probably meant that it's not something that belongs to the X specification, but a quirk entirely invented by the implementors of Xfree86.

I've spent most of my time on other X servers (SGI, Sun, Apple). The Apple is XFree based, but doesn't include the ctl-alt-backspace thing.

Whatever, I use linux like everyone else.

Aren't you a rebel?

--
-- The world is watching America, and America is watching TV.
Re:It doesn't matter what it is... by dark+druid · 2003-09-30 06:04 · Score: 4, Informative

It's not broken. You have to be an admin to change that registry key. If you are already an admin it doesn't really matter since you could do more creative things like replace the keyboard driver.
Re:It doesn't matter what it is... by Chester+K · 2003-09-30 06:28 · Score: 1

This is actually untrue. There are several ways to capture ctrl-alt-del in Windows. One is by remapping the keyboard with the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\Keyboard Layout registry entry. This changes the key mappings before the system processes ctrl-alt-del.

The idea of a secure access key is a good one, but MS has a broken implementation since they allow it to be circumvented.

Too bad the Registry is a securable object, otherwise you might have a point.

--

NO CARRIER
Re:It doesn't matter what it is... by bahamat · 2003-09-30 06:43 · Score: 1

Too bad the Registry is a securable object, otherwise you might have a point.

You procede from a false assumption. I work in a major American corp. I'm not saying who, but you've not only heard of them, but more likely than not are a direct customer (not MS).

I can log into any computer on the network, and have administrator access on the local system. Securable? Maybe. Secured? Not likely.
Re:It doesn't matter what it is... by Chester+K · 2003-09-30 10:02 · Score: 1

I can log into any computer on the network, and have administrator access on the local system. Securable? Maybe. Secured? Not likely.

That's your sysadmin's fault, not Microsoft's. As an example of the same problem with another OS, Linux lets you modify the handling of its trusted path keystroke when you log in as "root" too.

If your network is set up to where you log in as a Domain User, and not a Local (or Domain) Administrator (like it should be), then the Ctrl-Alt-Del trusted path in Windows can't be corrupted.

--

NO CARRIER
Re:It doesn't matter what it is... by spitzak · 2003-09-30 10:51 · Score: 2, Interesting

The admin still cant get information that is not stored on the machine, such as passwords that are stored in the domain controller. Thus doing this does have the potential of getting information they don't already have access to, so it is bad.
Re:It doesn't matter what it is... by BenV666 · 2003-09-30 11:45 · Score: 1

That's why I always enter a wrong password on my 1st try ;)
Re:It doesn't matter what it is... by PenguiN42 · 2003-09-30 14:55 · Score: 1

The point is, if you have admin on a windows machine, there's a billion ways to circumvent Ctrl-alt-del (how about changing the GINA driver, for another?), so this particular registry key isn't a big deal.

--
The following sentence is true. The preceding sentence was false.

Re:-1, JEALOUS BASTARD WITH SMALL DICK by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:04 · Score: 0

Oh yeah, because steroid usage definitely makes your penis smaller. Fucking dumbass. Barry Bonds could probably wrap his dick around your scrawny neck, you pathetic, jealous dork.

Oh NO! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:05 · Score: 0

We have just witnessed the next Slashdot joke!

It'll rank right up there with beowulf clusters, soviet russia, and insensitive clods!

Re:Oh NO! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:35 · Score: 0

I'm with you 99%.
Re:Oh NO! by JeffTL · 2003-09-30 05:13 · Score: 1

Except that it shouldn't be $600, it should be an introductory price of $699

On Tech TV by pr0vidence · 2003-09-30 04:05 · Score: 5, Funny

I actually saw a video clip on Tech TV with him and Bill Gates (and someone else but the name eludes me for the moment). They were in some sort of conference and he goes (not a word-for-word quote)"Yes well I'm the one who created CTRL-ALT-DEL, but Bill here is the one who made it famous" ... rousing laughter from the crowd, Bill has the embarassed grin on his face. He allows the laughter to die a little and says "...For Windows NT log-ons!" it was a CLASSIC moment.

Re:On Tech TV by _xeno_ · 2003-09-30 04:46 · Score: 3, Informative

I found a video of it on the TechTV site, but if you look closely at it, you'll note that whoever encoded this video swiped some other video and encoded that. Look closely and you'll notice the original progress bar on the bottom of the movie sliding under it, as well as text from where the video was originally from. (The movie is the "video highlight" for the day, and requires JS and Windows Media Player. Works under Mozilla, though. You'll need to look at an ad, too.)
By the way, it's closer to:
Bradley: "Now I have to share the credit. I may have invented it, but I think that Bill Gates is the one who made it famous."
Roaring laughter, shot of Bill Gates looking a bit miffed.
"When you used it for NT logon! That's what I meant."
Shot of Bill Gates shrugging and acting as if maybe he believes Bradley.

All in all, Gates too it rather well, you need to see the video because my description makes it sound like Gates got really upset and he took it in stride quite well.

--
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Re:On Tech TV by yetanothertechie · 2003-09-30 04:53 · Score: 1

I always wondered if there was a psychological reason that MS chose this particular combination to initiate login: to replace one of the long-standing negatives associated with Windows with something positive. So that when people think of ctrl-alt-del they would no longer think "windows sucks", but instead would think "windows works".

It's repackaging and marketing -- what MS does best.

--
Facts are stubborn things.
Re:On Tech TV by ender- · 2003-09-30 06:11 · Score: 1

The explaination I heard was that at the time NT was created, there were no trojans/viruses that could withstand a CTRL-ALT-DEL. So it was their way of trying to make sure that when you logged in, there were no trojans watching you.

Don't know how true that might be though. Of course, even if it was true I'm sure it took about a week for someone to write a trojan that could ignore it...

Ender

--
Nothing to see here
Re:On Tech TV by Asprin · 2003-09-30 06:49 · Score: 1

Actually, I believe the reason for using C-A-D to bring up the logon dialog is because it makes running a program that presents a fake but authentic-looking logon dialog (to collect passwords) very difficult. The idea is: if you wanted to log on, and the first thing you had to do was C-A-D, then that keystroke combo would circumvent the fake logon program (if one were running) and bring up task manager instead, letting you know things weren't right.

Now, I'm not up on NT security internals to know if this is a valid safeguard or not, but if there is an exploit to trap C-A-D and spoof the logon under Windows, it certainly isn't common. However, I know that DOS programs (like smartdrive) have been able to do that sort of thing for years to flush cache before rebooting, so I have to believe it's possible, even if it is difficult. Maybe a hacked copy of NT running on a 386 emulator under NT would work?

--
"Lawyers are for sucks."
- Doug McKenzie
Re:On Tech TV by Stiletto · 2003-09-30 07:59 · Score: 1

I'd say Gates took it a little worse than "rather well". He gave the guy a look that says "You will meet my experimental DEATH RAY after this show!!"
Re:On Tech TV by Jetifi · 2003-09-30 08:32 · Score: 1

AFAIK, C-A-D is a "Secure Access Key", to use the nomenclature. IIRC it's /supposed/ to be impossible to intercept in software, although of course running NT* on a VM should work.

A SAK is actually one thing that most distros lack.

Can you imagine by eples · 2003-09-30 04:05 · Score: 1

Can you imagine being David Bradley and having to deal with being interviewed by this tool from the Indianapolis Star?

Next week he's interviewing the guy who "discovered" the left mouse button.

--
I'm a 2000 man.

It's Disable-able (Re:Yeah but) by Squonk01 · 2003-09-30 04:05 · Score: 0

It was removed to prevent a security risk (M$ catches some of them). To disable cntrl-alt-delte in Windows, try this site.

ctrl+alt+del by nija · 2003-09-30 04:07 · Score: 1

ctrl+alt+del > ctrl-alt-del now.. how can i make it have the teeth so it looks hungry like a (wolf) alligator C'mon, don't your remember 4th grade.... someone... anyone...? *pin drop*

Frightening by not_a_george · 2003-09-30 04:07 · Score: 3, Funny

Good thing this guy doesn't work for SCO
Can you imagine paying $699 everytime you have to ctrl-alt-delete?

--
Linux: Helping nerds look smarter since the late 90s.

Re:-1, JEALOUS BASTARD WITH SMALL DICK by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:07 · Score: 0

All sports fans are losers. Quit following mindless entertainment composed of millionaire assholes. Every time a jock dies I smile.

Linux Equivilent! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:07 · Score: 0

Alt+Print Screen+B! I came accross it a while ago when doing screenshots pressing alt+print screen. Be careful, if your using ext2 then prepare to fsck.

Choice quote: by GojiraDeMonstah · 2003-09-30 04:08 · Score: 1

"Further, he says, ordinary citizens need to understand science and technology better to make informed choices in the voting booth."

Yeah, especially if the voting booth runs on those Diebold machines...! ;-)

--
"Stop throwing the Constitution in my face, it's just a goddamned piece of paper!" - George W. Bush Nov. 2005

Re:Choice quote: by gerardrj · 2003-09-30 05:49 · Score: 1

Yea, I think this comment might be more appropriate today:

Further, he says, ordinary citizens need to understand science and technology better to make informed choices about the voting booth.

If the "common" people don't wake up and start understanding what voting is starting to become (totally closed, no paper trail, and insecure), then these systems will prevail and votes will be even more easily purchased than they are today.

--
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people

It's there so by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:08 · Score: 0

Password Changing can't be intercepted by a fake password changer/logger.

Re:It's there so by residieu · 2003-09-30 04:24 · Score: 1

That doesn't make it any more intuitive.
Re:It's there so by grub · 2003-09-30 04:26 · Score: 1

I beg to differ: one of these would work. Of course you likely meant software loggers.

--
Trolling is a art,

Weird accessory by allanj · 2003-09-30 04:09 · Score: 4, Funny

From when Win95/98 reigned supreme - CtrlAltDel stick!

--
Black holes are where God divided by zero

Re:Weird accessory by bolind · 2003-09-30 04:25 · Score: 1

Hey, this is interesting. I always press Left Ctrl- Left Alt - Delete-between-Enter-and-End, as in the one above the upside down T arrows. Maybe this is a new poll?
Re:Weird accessory by DWormed · 2003-09-30 04:33 · Score: 3, Informative

Of course, for those of us who are slightly more lazy, this Easier to use version.

--
Dependable, Reliable Furnishings
Re:Weird accessory by Merk · 2003-09-30 07:39 · Score: 1

I happen to use the vulcan nerve pinch (right ctrl-alt, standard delete.

fysically impaired? by valentyn · 2003-09-30 04:09 · Score: 3, Interesting

I once worked at a help desk. One call I remember is a man who, after my suggestion he should press "control alt del" went silent for a moment, then told me he only had one hand.

(It's sad to see that an option that was originally meant for engineers, made it all up to the login screen of an operating system. Well, maybe Larry presses the "eject" button to start his plane, what do we know? ;-)

--
my other sig is a 500 page novel

Re:fysically impaired? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:18 · Score: 0

What kind of keyboard was he using? I busted my left up pretty bad in a car accident, and didn't have any use of it for six months. I may not have been able to type, but the left control and alt keys are close enough together to hit with one hand (index on alt, ring finger on control, pinkie on delete), and that's all you REALLY need to do with Windows.
Re:fysically impaired? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:22 · Score: 0

if you're really that stuck, use your hand + nose.
Re:fysically impaired? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:32 · Score: 0

I always use my right hand alone for control (index finger), alt (thumb) delete (third finger). Its mucho more fun. It should be a slashdot poll to see how many people do it.
Re:fysically impaired? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:23 · Score: 0

I can hit control-alt-delete w/ one hand...
Re:fysically impaired? by poot_rootbeer · 2003-09-30 05:40 · Score: 2, Informative

after my suggestion he should press "control alt del" went silent for a moment, then told me he only had one hand.

The right-hand Ctrl and Alt keys are within reach of the Del key. It's a bit awkward, but it should be.
Re:fysically impaired? by Cro+Magnon · 2003-09-30 06:02 · Score: 2, Informative

I just checked. I had my index finger on Alt, my third finger on Ctrl, my pinky on Del - and my middle finger sticking straight out. I guess that IS the right way to do it.

--
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Re:fysically impaired? by ThreeDayMonk · 2003-09-30 06:22 · Score: 1

Spelling impaired, more like...but I digress.

As several people have pointed out, you can press Ctrl-Alt-Del with one hand - but this is only true on keyboards that have a right-hand Alt key. Most European layouts have AltGr to the right of the space bar instead to help with typing accented letters and so on. Even the UK keyboard has AltGr, although I think that it only works on one key (the one to the left of number 1) to type a useless hook-shaped mark.

It's often useful to be able to do things with one hand, even if you have two (this applies to work as well as browsing pr0n) and given how often Windows historically needed rebooting, it's a damned inconvenience to put them so far apart.

--
If your comment title says 'Re: Foo', I'm not likely to read it.
Re:fysically impaired? by pommiekiwifruit · 2003-09-30 06:29 · Score: 1

The UK keyboard now has a second use for AltGr!
on the 4 key you can use the Euro symbol ( banned by /. ).
Re:fysically impaired? by jpmkm · 2003-09-30 07:10 · Score: 2, Informative

Thumb on alt, ring finger on control, middle finger on delete.
Re:fysically impaired? by gid · 2003-09-30 07:34 · Score: 1

Obvious he wasn't using one of the new windows keyboards
Re:fysically impaired? by jacobito · 2003-09-30 07:34 · Score: 1

I once worked at a help desk. One call I remember is a man who, after my suggestion he should press "control alt del" went silent for a moment, then told me he only had one hand.

I had a similar support call back when I worked for Dell. The solution, for recent versions of Windows at least, is to go to the Accessibility control panel and turn on a feature called StickyKeys. This allows you to press key combinations that use Shift, Alt, or Ctrl one key at a time.
Re:fysically impaired? by cpeterso · 2003-09-30 08:23 · Score: 1

help desk? Are you sure this wasn't some type of geek-fetish help-desk/phone-sex hotline and he was masturbating while talking to you?

--
cpeterso
Re:fysically impaired? by May+Kasahara · 2003-09-30 11:28 · Score: 1

Doesn't really work for a split/natural keyboard though. How about: thumb on Alt, index on Ctrl, and middle finger on Del?
Re:fysically impaired? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 12:04 · Score: 0

I have a Swedish keyboard, with AltGr to the right. Ctrl-AltGr-Delete actually works fine.
Re:fysically impaired? by Wolfrider · 2003-09-30 13:13 · Score: 1

No no no... Thumb on Ctrl, Index on Alt, pinky on Del.

Unfortunately the right-side combo doesn't work under Linux 2.4.22, I have to use the left Ctrl/Alt to shutdown. :(

--
.
== WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
Re:fysically impaired? by lostchicken · 2003-09-30 13:36 · Score: 1

Thumb on alt, pinkie in Control, middle on delete.

--
-twb
Re:fysically impaired? by jpmkm · 2003-09-30 17:28 · Score: 1

Well I have a microsoft natural pro internet whatthefuckever(the good one from back in the day) and I've always used the way I originally posted. Actually now that I am thinking about it I can't fucking figure out what I naturally do. I just have to do it, but I don't get much of a chance to in linux.
Re:fysically impaired? by kiwirob · 2003-09-30 18:14 · Score: 1

The easiest way with one hand is

- thumb on alt
- index finger folded over with your fingernail on ctl
- middle finger can now tab away on the del key.

It's one of those outside the box solutions.
No where is it written that you have to have your fingers straight when you do ctl-alt-del.
Re:fysically impaired? by May+Kasahara · 2003-10-01 15:00 · Score: 1

Hehe... okay, now I see what you mean. I have the same type of keyboard (eerie, eh?), and I tried your configuration again. Never thought to bend the knuckles in my ring finger :)
At any rate, I usually use both hands for this command, as I almost never use the alt and ctrl (and apple and option) keys on the right side of the keyboard.

20 years later.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:10 · Score: 0

He picked this key combination because it's "impossible to hit by accident." 20 years later, we've all done it fifty million times, and our fingers reflexively move to the control-alt-delete position whenever anything goes wrong with anything.

One-armed users everywhere.. by AgentPhunk · 2003-09-30 04:10 · Score: 2, Insightful

Now one-armed users can give a one-finger salute to the man that created the three-finger-salute.

Re:One-armed users everywhere.. by TopShelf · 2003-09-30 04:24 · Score: 1

Actually, since most keyboards have ALT & CTL on both sides of the spacebar, it's quite easy to do a one-handed three-finger salute...

--
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more

Actually, he already has groupies, sort of... by Ewann · 2003-09-30 04:11 · Score: 1

Dr. Bradley teaches Digital Logic (ECE212, I think) at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. At least, he taught the class there about four years ago; I hope he still does. It sounds corny, but he made digital logic "fun!" His lectures were great. On the last day of class he brought in a slide show and told the story of the development of the PC. Totally fascinating.

CTRL-SHIFT-ESCAPE by Ummite · 2003-09-30 04:11 · Score: 1

I wonder who is the guy who tough about having ctrl-shift-escape to start task manager. I found it by accident... Anyone know any other sequence that do interesting tasks on Windows?

Re:CTRL-SHIFT-ESCAPE by ianholmes02 · 2003-09-30 04:28 · Score: 1

ctrl-shift-esc

Toggles through open apps (win2k) over here!!! Like alt-tab but without the graphic
Re:CTRL-SHIFT-ESCAPE by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:29 · Score: 0

There are many keyboard shortcuts in windows. Besides the obvious Windows key shortcuts (Windows + M = minimize all, Windows = Start menu, Windows + F = find, Windows + R = run), Alt+Tab changes windows, ctrl+esc = start menu, F2 = rename, F3 = search. I'm sure there's a page somewhere that has a whole listing of these, I'm just too lazy to look it up.

He's really a very cool guy. by rarose · 2003-09-30 04:11 · Score: 1

I wonder if he's got the same old email address:
DRDAVE AT BCRVM1

Matter of fact, I wonder if dear old BCRVM1 even still exists anymore.

--
--Rob

Re:He's really a very cool guy. by Dave21212 · 2003-09-30 04:17 · Score: 1

Weird, it looks like Verisign bought that company ?

www.bcrvm1.com

No mention of ol' Dr Dave though...

I wonder what it means ?

--
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
Re:He's really a very cool guy. by rarose · 2003-09-30 04:19 · Score: 1

Not quite... BCRVM1 was the old IBM Boca Raton mainframe. BCR=Boca Raton, birthplace of the IBM PC and OS/2.
-Rob
RAROSE AT BCRVM1

--
--Rob
Re:He's really a very cool guy. by cant_get_a_good_nick · 2003-09-30 04:24 · Score: 1

This looks like a BITNET address, BITNET shut down some time ago. Most of the machines on BITNET (including my school's UICVM, which was a huge BITNET INTERNET bridge) shut down. Nobody wanted to update UICVM to Y2K, so it went the way of the dinosoars. Anyone else have fond memories of tell, gone, and bart?
Re:He's really a very cool guy. by Dave21212 · 2003-09-30 04:34 · Score: 1

Oh, *that* BCRVM1. Too cool... I still know a person or two that use OS/2, one guy is a fanatic. I'm sure you've heard the old joke 1,000 times

"How many programmers does it take to reboot an OS/2 box?"
"None, they never go down."

Classic.

By the way, you look like a hardware level guy, do you mess around with any of the Domino stuff ?

--
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin

The only difference is... by SatanicPuppy · 2003-09-30 04:12 · Score: 1

Windows automatically reboots itself now. Explorer crashes, then restarts itself. Granted this is progress, but lets get rid of the whole crashing thing, eh?

I've got a really nice XP Pro box which dual boots into Linux. XP claims I've got some sort of unspecified "Driver" problem (All signed drivers, mind you) which most people think is related to memory, though my memory tests fine. Damn box goes down more often than a nickel whore. I'm about to have a really nice linux box with virtual pc on it. This crap is intolerable.

Oh yea, one more thing. In order to see the blue screen on the new Win boxes, you have to turn off the "Automatically reboot on crash" "feature".

--
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.

Re:The only difference is... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:20 · Score: 0

Not our fault you're too stupid to set up your box right.

I haven't had a bluescreen or reboot EVER in Win2k, minus the ones caused by everyone's beloved Bittorrent, and those took a router firmware update to fix.
Re:The only difference is... by Sj0 · 2003-09-30 04:32 · Score: 1

Win2k is far superior to WinXP in every concievable way ever. Don't forget that. It's faster, more stable, more versatile, more robust, has a nicer car, a cuter girlfreind and is better in bed.

Theoretically XP is faster in some areas, but theoretically, communism works. No wonder Microsoft was so quick to ditch win2k!

--
It's been a long time.
Re:The only difference is... by grub · 2003-09-30 04:32 · Score: 1

I haven't had a bluescreen or reboot EVER in Win2k, minus the ones caused by everyone's beloved Bittorrent, and those took a router firmware update to fix.

So? A program should not be able to bring down the host OS. If a router (in this case I'm assuming a Linksys-like thing) has old firmware which caused the PC to crash then the OS is not solid. The fact that it may be Bittorrent doing it is irrelevant.

--
Trolling is a art,
Re:The only difference is... by micromoog · 2003-09-30 04:40 · Score: 4, Insightful

Windows automatically reboots itself now. Explorer crashes, then restarts itself.
If you're going to get to that level of detail, shall we discuss the (in)stability of Gnome/KDE? It seems all to convenient that when Slashdotters define "Windows crashing", it includes any operational glitch at all, but "Linux crashing" seems to be confined to kernel panic only.
Re:The only difference is... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:45 · Score: 0

Well, I don't bitch at Linus if Metacity dies screaming. I bitch at Havoc Pennington. Actually, I use Openbox 3, 'cos Havoc Pennington is evil.
Re:The only difference is... by Directrix1 · 2003-09-30 04:46 · Score: 1

Virtual PC? You'd just end up running Windows in it, so whats the point? Use Wine, it gets you drunk and lets you use your computer to run programs expecting a virus-infested environment.

--
Occam's razor is the blind faith in the natural selection of least resistance and in universal oversimplification. -- EF
Re:The only difference is... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:00 · Score: 0

Not our fault you're too stupid to set up your box right.

But you are too stupid to realize that people with different hardware have different success running windows.
Re:The only difference is... by ThogScully · 2003-09-30 05:29 · Score: 1

That's a big difference. When Everybuddy crashes on my Linux desktop, my OpenOffice.org 20 page document is still there and generally has no idea Everybuddy hit a bug. When I jam up my machine's resources with a huge bzip2 command, Mozilla will just slow down under the load of my machine. The machine won't just lock up.

KDE (and I'd assume Gnome) doesn't really lock up much on its own, albeit I have known it to every couple months. I'll admin that if it does, then any applications that were open in KDE will go with it, but nothing's perfect and we're talking months here - it's more often I'll reboot for a new kernel compile or something.

When anything goes wrong in Windows, pretty much everything goes to hell. There's no protection of one application from another (at least not functionally).
-N

--
I've nothing to say here...
Re:The only difference is... by Cro+Magnon · 2003-09-30 05:43 · Score: 1

I haven't had KDE crash in years. NT4 at work blue-screens several times a month. I'll admit that's an improvement; Win9.x crashed several times a DAY!

--
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Re:The only difference is... by rhombic · 2003-09-30 06:04 · Score: 1

Have you tried using WinXP on a mobile that's hopping wireless networks several times a day? My one complaint with Win2k was the pitiful way laptops handled bouncing around different networks. XP has no problems moving around; that alone has made it worth switching for mobiles.

--
1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.
Re:The only difference is... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 06:07 · Score: 0

KDE has locked up on me more times than Windows XP! And there have been times when I come to a page with a java applet, and the whole system is taken down (that was with old mozilla though). I've also experienced a system crash playing that nibbles game.
Re:The only difference is... by Flopper · 2003-09-30 06:40 · Score: 1

If you're going to get to that level of detail, shall we discuss the (in)stability of Gnome/KDE? It seems all to convenient that when Slashdotters define "Windows crashing", it includes any operational glitch at all, but "Linux crashing" seems to be confined to kernel panic only.
Yes, because Windows includes by itself its GUI. You can't seperate it. Bad luck but nice try ;)
Re:The only difference is... by scot4875 · 2003-09-30 06:40 · Score: 1

There's no protection of one application from another

Spoken like someone who hasn't used Windows in years.

And BTW, even Win'95 protected apps from each other. It just did a really shitty job of protecting itself from the apps.

--Jeremy

--
Jesus was a liberal
Re:The only difference is... by spectecjr · 2003-09-30 06:50 · Score: 1

I haven't had KDE crash in years. NT4 at work blue-screens several times a month. I'll admit that's an improvement; Win9.x crashed several times a DAY!

How many years has it been since KDE has crashed on you? The only reason I ask is because NT4 is a 7 year old OS... so if your version of KDE is any newer than that, perhaps you might want to compare it to a recent version of Windows. Like one that was released in this century.

--
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Re:The only difference is... by Cro+Magnon · 2003-09-30 07:10 · Score: 1

I don't use Doze at home. When my boss upgrades to a Windows that was released in this century, I'll see if it's gotten any more stable.

--
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Re:The only difference is... by Overly+Critical+Guy · 2003-09-30 07:45 · Score: 1

Windows automatically reboots itself now. Explorer crashes, then restarts itself. Granted this is progress, but lets get rid of the whole crashing thing, eh?

It's called "using stable drivers." Windows doesn't randomly crash over nothing anymore. The NT kernel is vastly stable.

--
"Sufferin' succotash."
Re:The only difference is... by Sj0 · 2003-09-30 07:46 · Score: 1

I have, but admittedly I wasn't the one responsible for setting up the network or the laptop, so it could be a problem addressed before I had a chance to test the network(it was only a few weeks old at that point though...). My only wireless experience

I wonder if it would be possible to create a patch which could move the relevant DLL files responsible for things such as the speedier disk transfer speeds under NTFS or the better wireless networking into 2k. If that was possible, we could take the few minor flaws in 2k (or the few minor enhancements in XP) and fix them...

(but 2k is still far superior. If you want proof, just click on This link to the XP helpcenter. :) )

--
It's been a long time.
Re:The only difference is... by Overly+Critical+Guy · 2003-09-30 07:58 · Score: 1

Win2k is far superior to WinXP in every concievable way ever.

XP is 2k but with Windows File Protection, togglable theming, dynamically optimizing booting, fast user switching, and vastly increased laptop support. All that and more.

--
"Sufferin' succotash."
Re:The only difference is... by micromoog · 2003-09-30 08:06 · Score: 1

The point is, you can't compare the stability of a complex system (Windows kernel + GUI) to the stability of a relatively simpler system (Linux kernel only).
Re:The only difference is... by Flopper · 2003-09-30 08:17 · Score: 1

... Windows kernel + GUI vs. Linux kernel only ...
Yes, indeed. If you don't take the X GUIs into that boat you'll fail the comparation. It's probably much similiar, that's why I use an alternative WM. But I saw more Bluescreens (which come from the kernel and its drivers) on Windows than Oops/Panics on Linux. Everybody has his own experiences.
Re:The only difference is... by Sj0 · 2003-09-30 09:06 · Score: 1

XP is 2k, but crap. Insurmountable, unbelievable crap. Really, I couldn't believe how badly they fucked up the fundamentally great 2k core either.

(vastly increased laptop support? Care to elabourate?)

--
It's been a long time.
Re:The only difference is... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 09:45 · Score: 0

I've only ever seen one kernel panic, and it was due to faulty memory. I've never had X or blackbox (and more recently fluxbox) lock up.
I have had applications segfault, but not very frequently. Even then, the problems are usually corrected in the next version after sending a bug report.
Re:The only difference is... by spitzak · 2003-09-30 10:29 · Score: 1

I agree. I certainly remember Linux GUI programs did crash all the time, leading to either a logout or to a hung X server, usually hung up so that Ctrl+Fn would not work either. To almost any user this rendered the Linux box as useless as a blue-screened Windows box and you had to reboot. And you had to wait for fsck to complete as well.

However thinking about this I realize that the most recent systems (ie less than 3 years old) have NOT shown any such crashes. It seems KDE and Gnome have improved code quality, or at least set things up so programs that screw up do not take out the window manager.

Oddly enough my newest Linux sytems *do* crash in the kernel more often, apparently due to a faulty network driver. I believe 100% of my crashes are Windows-like kernel crashes nowadays.
Re:The only difference is... by Unregistered · 2003-09-30 11:18 · Score: 1

1) my linux doesn't crash -- it's set up right. I just got done resinstalling win2k on a box i hardly use.

2) On a linux server(where uptime really matters), you don't need kde/gnome. On a win server, you can't diable exploror.
Re:The only difference is... by 1010011010 · 2003-09-30 11:47 · Score: 2, Funny

No, XP is Win2k + Romper Room.

--
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Re:The only difference is... by NaDrew · 2003-09-30 14:44 · Score: 1

On a win server, you can't diable exploror.
Sure you can, as long as you replace it with something. Explorer.exe (as opposed to IExplore.exe, the Web browser container) is the equivalent to GNOME/KDE on Linux. You can replace it with any of a number of alternate shells, of which LiteStep is perhaps the most used.
Of course most people don't bother.

--
Vista:XPSP2::ME:98SE
Re:The only difference is... by ThogScully · 2003-09-30 23:40 · Score: 1

I used Win2K pretty regularly up until this year actually. And I'm well aware that Windows has had application protected memory spaces for quite some time, but if it doesn't work, then what good is it? My whole point is that when something does happen to crash in Linux, it's isolated. Whenever anything crashes in Windows, it likely took down the whole system, and if it didn't, it introduced instability into everything until a restart happened anyway.
-N

--
I've nothing to say here...

Every convention comes from somewhere. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:13 · Score: 0

There's my interesting fact for the day...I always wondered how that combination came about.

I wonder if the generations who haven't lived in an MS-DOS world will know where the "Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to log on" screen came from. I heard it was chosen to defeat DOS-based keyloggers that mimiced the Windows login screen.

teacher at NCSU by laydros · 2003-09-30 04:13 · Score: 0

I know the article says he speaks at universities, but I already had a laugh over this concept because a couple of years ago a friend of mine had him as an instructor at NC State in North Carolina. He said the guy was funny..

He really dosent take this stuff seriously by eeinnc · 2003-09-30 04:14 · Score: 2, Interesting

I have had Dr. Bradley for several classes at NCSU, he is a good instructor and mostly just jokes about his part in creating the first IBM PC. His famous quote is "I may have created ctrl-alt-delete, but it took Bill Gates to make it famous." I wish there were more guys like Bradley that took time to come back to the classroom and share there valuable experience with the next generation of engineers. Thanks Dr. Bradley.

Two weeks later, ... by burgburgburg · 2003-09-30 04:15 · Score: 1

You receive a Federal grant none of you remembered applying for.

A week after that, the pigeon comes back for it's cut of the money. Oh yes, I've seen that one before. Finder's fee? I don't think so.

Re:-1, JEALOUS BASTARD WITH SMALL DICK by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:15 · Score: 0

All slashdot fans are losers. Quit following mindless entertainment composed of fat dorks sitting at computers eating cheetos and Mountain Dew while their arteries harden. Every time a virgin geek dies I smile.

Fugget-about the Ctrl-Alt-Del by Begemot · 2003-09-30 04:15 · Score: 1

I really wanna know who's that sick-twisted-pervert person who decided to put Power and Sleep buttons right above the Insert! I admit that it happens only on the cheapest keyboards, but that's the only kind my company buys. I'm sick and tired to rip them off all the time.

Makes an excellent death threat... by SunPin · 2003-09-30 04:15 · Score: 1

if I ever meet you, I'll control-alt-delete you.

Quite intimidating.

--
Laws are for people with no friends.

Re:Makes an excellent death threat... by user32.ExitWindowsEx · 2003-09-30 04:38 · Score: 1

Weird Al used that in a song...I'm listening to it now.

--
"Evil will always triumph because good is dumb." -- Dark Helmet
Re:Makes an excellent death threat... by dmaxwell · 2003-09-30 04:39 · Score: 1

Yeah, its all about the Pentiums isn't it?
Re:Makes an excellent death threat... by SunPin · 2003-09-30 08:17 · Score: 1

Yeah, the one time I intentionally troll, I didn't get marked damn.

--
Laws are for people with no friends.
Re:Makes an excellent death threat... by SunPin · 2003-09-30 10:34 · Score: 1

Actually, it's about trolling. I've had a bad streak with the moderators for my last 10 posts. I decided to give them a reason to mod me down and nothing happened... go figure.

--
Laws are for people with no friends.
Re:Makes an excellent death threat... by dmaxwell · 2003-09-30 12:40 · Score: 1

I was referring the Weird Al tune "All about the Pentiums" in which he indeed threatens to "Control-Alt-Delete you!". I thought you might have been too.
Re:Makes an excellent death threat... by SunPin · 2003-09-30 14:26 · Score: 1

I was. I'm a lifelong weird Al fan. I wonder what the original guy thought when he heard weird Al turn his keystrokes into a cultural flamebait (albeit playful flamebait.)

--
Laws are for people with no friends.

One Hand by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:16 · Score: 0

Just use the R-ALT+R-CTRL&(3rd right from index finger) to execute. Voila!

They Might Be Giants already figured it out... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:16 · Score: 0

If Ctl-Alt-Del Man and Hit Any Key man had a fight, it's obvious who would win: Triangle Man (he wins all the fights!)

Except maybe with Aeon Man

Anonymous Kev
Proudly posting as AC since 1997

Another good story on Dr. Bradley and PC history by Ewann · 2003-09-30 04:16 · Score: 3, Informative

Here's one that has some more quotes from Dr. Bradley about inventing Ctrl-Alt-Del, as well as interviews with others on the team that invented the first IBM PC.

Googling on his name along with "history of IBM PC" yields other good tidbits.

In other news... by WalterSobchak · 2003-09-30 04:16 · Score: 4, Funny

I can vivedly remeber unpacking my first Macintosh, must have been 1984 or something. The package included a little, user installable switch, and this is what the Mac Handbook had to say about it:

"Programmer's Switch
The switch causes a reset or an interrupt. If you do not know what a reset or an interrupt is, you do not need it."

I could not have said it better...

Alex

--
Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder

Commodore 64 by headkase · 2003-09-30 04:16 · Score: 1

Pressing run/stop-restore on my old trusty Commodore 64 would perform a hard reset. This was oh about 1981.
Dammit, I'm getting old ;)

--
Shh.

Re:Commodore 64 by Alan+Shutko · 2003-09-30 04:24 · Score: 1

No, it wouldn't. It would perform a "harder" reset than just hitting run-stop, but it wouldn't reset the machine. It was easily trapped by software and wouldn't work in most applications.

Which is why so many of us had reset switches on a fast-load type card or off (iirc) the user port.
Re:Commodore 64 by sqlrob · 2003-09-30 04:36 · Score: 1

Switch? I always used a paper clip.
Re:Commodore 64 by Prowl · 2003-09-30 05:30 · Score: 1

Blimey, that brings back memories :-)

Don't forget Ctrl-Amiga-Amiga too!

--
That man tried to kill mah Daddy
Re:Commodore 64 by stm2 · 2003-09-30 05:35 · Score: 1

There were a complete restore key combination: SYS64738 [return]

And I don't know why, but to stop a program with run-stop+restore, you had to hit the restore key very strong in order to work.

--
DNA in your Linux: DNALinux
Re:Commodore 64 by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 07:15 · Score: 0

Switch? I always used a paper clip.

Hah! Lazy bum! Paper clip? I used the main breaker switch in the electricity cabinet in the basement each time I wanted to reset.
Re:Commodore 64 by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 09:08 · Score: 0

You're getting old?!?! Commodore 64's were the new luxury compared to my old Vic-20 with a cassette tape drive! I still remember when I first got a CGA display on my Kaypro 8086, I was the envy of all the "losers" who still had MGA displays. 4 colours, onscreen, SIMULTANEOUSLY!

That and SysRq by morcheeba · 2003-09-30 04:18 · Score: 4, Informative

SysRq was the original interrupt-generating special keystroke. It doesn't get much use anymore, though.

--
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets

Re:That and SysRq by cscx · 2003-09-30 04:28 · Score: 1

Don't forget Linux's Magic SysRq Key!
Re:That and SysRq by bitrott · 2003-09-30 04:41 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Why do you think that sig of your is funny/interesting? What's your agenda here? Do you have to be reminded that Aids is a deadly disease crippling sub-saharan nations? I've seen your sig several times, and I can't fathom what your point is.
Re:That and SysRq by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:02 · Score: 0

Why do you think that sig of your is funny/interesting? What's your agenda here? Do you have to be reminded that Aids is a deadly disease crippling sub-saharan nations? I've seen your sig several times, and I can't fathom what your point is.
Agenda? I checked out the link in his sig, and it appears he is linking to information, not an opinion. He doesn't have an opinion ONE in any of his journal posts. Did you bother to READ his other journal entries to see if he had some "anti aids" agenda? I didn't think so. You just knee jerk reacted to someone who posted a journal entry in their sig.

Get off your high horse and stfu. The reason you can't fathom is that you are walking around with a chip on your shoulder, looking for an arguement, like all trolls. Now go crawl back under your bridge, loser.
Re:That and SysRq by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:14 · Score: 0

Sesame Street introduced an HIV+ muppet, and a lot of people found this to be amusing.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2123697. st m
Re:That and SysRq by poot_rootbeer · 2003-09-30 05:36 · Score: 1

[SysRq] doesn't get much use anymore, though.

Well, it shares a keycap with 'PrntScrn', so some people still press it.

When was the last time anyone used its neighbors 'Scroll Lock' and 'Pause/Break', though?
Re:That and SysRq by princewally · 2003-09-30 06:07 · Score: 1

I use scroll lock regularly. It runs my kvm switch.

--

-
"Vengeance is fine," sayeth the Lord.
Re:That and SysRq by morcheeba · 2003-09-30 06:14 · Score: 1

I find it interesting that the TV show producers decided to deal with "living with AIDS", but very little with the perhaps more important topic of "AIDS prevention". Although prevention would be hard to discuss with the intended age group, the total lack of the two biggest transmission methods in the Seasame Street universe could lead to misinformation and rumors -- exactly the type of rumors that I'm sure the producers wanted to dispell.

There is a humor aspect (check my journal entry) that I found healthy when dealing with such a grim disease, but I intended to make fun only of muppets and not any suffering humans.

You're the first to comment on my sig. Thanks.

--
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
Re:That and SysRq by k8to · 2003-09-30 08:31 · Score: 1

In Linux, scroll lock functions as a CTRL-S/CTRL-Q XOn/Xoff toggle, which is quite handy.

Pause/Break I've used in various games, strangely enough, who use it as a pause key.

--
-josh
Re:That and SysRq by bitrott · 2003-09-30 09:29 · Score: 1

I'v read the article several times before thanks. I wasn't knee jerking, and I'f you closely read my response you'd see that I wasn't passing judgement. I was asking why he had it, what his point was, and placing the question in context of the issue at large. You're the one who's knee jerking. Help me out here, I asked a reasonable question... how does that make me a loser? You ass.
Re:That and SysRq by bitrott · 2003-09-30 09:41 · Score: 1

Well, of the responses to my questions, yours was the most reasonable. I'm quite familiar with the topic at hand and love a dose of gallows humor when it's actually funny. Though like all good humor it's context is human suffering (it's true) a good joke still has a hook. There's a laugh in there somewhere, but I don't really think you nailed it. Really in the end you're left with a not-funny joke in bad taste. I'm sure a few /.ers out there got real yuks, but they're amongst the 'easily amused'. So, I'm the first to comment. You surely think me a hypersensitive PC drone like that other replier did, but the opposite is true. I'm really interested in why you thought your lame joke was funny enough to make you look both like an embarassing cheeseball to some and like an insensitive asshole to others.

In short: HAHA..er..

what about by naztafari · 2003-09-30 04:18 · Score: 1

Scroll Lock and SysRq? Those keys seem vestigial in todays MS-centric PCs...

Re:what about by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:37 · Score: 0

Heh, I havn't seen the sysrq key since my 286 caught fire:) At least that did something on mine (initiated the bios setup program). I don't think I ever used scroll lock except a couple games that used it as a control or something.
Re:what about by nearlygod · 2003-09-30 05:24 · Score: 1

I use SysRq all the time. But then again, not everyone has an AS/400 in their basement.

--
The Tools Of Ignorance wanna be a tool?

I personally give... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:19 · Score: 0

...all windows machines the 3 fingered salute

"Re:Er" is a palindrome! (NT) by Mephie · 2003-09-30 04:21 · Score: 4, Funny

Just an observation...

I should really get some work done...

--
Buy the President

Re:"Re:Er" is a palindrome! (NT) by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:58 · Score: 0

so is you_are_a_dumbass__ssabmud_a_era_uoy

Ctrl and Alt by msgmonkey · 2003-09-30 04:21 · Score: 1

I can't understand why they dont just label the Ctrl key Control.. It's not for a lack of space. Granted you may want to be consistant and change the Alt key too which would be a problem, well on my keyboard anyway where the keys are 2/3 size of Control. However, having said that it's always control-alt-delete and not control-alternate-delete.

Re:Ctrl and Alt by Haeleth · 2003-09-30 04:41 · Score: 1

The keyboard I'm using right now _does_ label it "control". But it has empty arrows instead of "shift" labels.
Re:Ctrl and Alt by Ewan · 2003-09-30 04:43 · Score: 1

My Cherry keyboard says Control, I honestly hadn't noticed till you made this post though.
Re:Ctrl and Alt by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:43 · Score: 0

I can't understand why they dont just label the Ctrl key Control..

And why don't they label the 'Windows' key 'BSOD'?

Hardy.har.har..
Re:Ctrl and Alt by gsfprez · 2003-09-30 05:44 · Score: 1

On Apple Keyboards, "Control" is spelled out....

as is "option", "delete"... or is that "baskpace"?

sorry, i'm on a Dell at work using an Apple Extended Keyboard II because Dell's office-drone keyboards are total shit.

--
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
Re:Ctrl and Alt by dre80 · 2003-09-30 07:09 · Score: 1

Might I ask how you pulled off the feat of connecting an ADB keyboard to a PC? You've got me really curious now...

Right. In fact, by TrekkieGod · 2003-09-30 04:21 · Score: 4, Informative

If you'd like to trap the Ctrl-Alt-Del combination in Linux, and use it for something else, edit your inittab. Look for a comment along the lines of #trap CTRL-ALT-DEL. Below it there will be a command such as

ca::ctrlaltdel:/sbin/shutdown -r now

Yep...you might recognize that as the reboot command. You can go ahead and change it so that it shuts down your computer or run anything else you desire (although it'll run it with root privileges so, don't put something stupid in there unless you're running Lindows and therefore are always root, I guess)

--

Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.

I agree by spudchucker · 2003-09-30 04:23 · Score: 0

IUSER hardly takes much of a notice.

Re:-1, JEALOUS BASTARD WITH SMALL DICK by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:23 · Score: 0

Very original, jock-o. Go back to watching your drug crazed jocks while you sit on the couch drinking your "Bud" and eating pizza.

It's about time by br00tus · 2003-09-30 04:23 · Score: 5, Funny

It's about time Slashdot got around to honoring this man.

David Bradley, I give you a three finger salute. Microsoft, I salute you as well, minus two fingers.

Re:It's about time by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 11:07 · Score: 0

What's there to honor? I think I remember him grading some presentations that a EE class was doing. The man was an asshole. And precisely what was so wonderful about a heavy computer with lots of connectors (ooh a cassette tape interface!!) but a puny amount of ram, no peripherals, a non-operating system, and a cheapo cpu with segmented addressing and no memory protection that wasn't even truly 16 bit? Remember the Amiga and the Macintosh, plus all those Z80-based machines with a S100 bus? The original IBM PC was nothing special, except that it was made by IBM. This guy is nothing special except that he once worked for IBM.

a few pokes by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:23 · Score: 0

You could also reprogram the reset key on the apple ][+ with "a few pokes". All the reset key did was cause an indirect jump to an address stored in a particular memory location.

dammit by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:24 · Score: 0

More than once I've spent the morning working on NT boxes, then walked over to our linux web server and mindlessly pressed ctrl-alt-del to logon... not pretty...

Re:dammit by octogen · 2003-09-30 06:31 · Score: 1

Maybe you should disable ctrl-alt-del in your /etc/inittab.

Contrary to Popular Belief by pete-classic · 2003-09-30 04:24 · Score: 2, Redundant

David Bradley created this key sequence.

Bill Gates merely made it famous.

-Peter

Not enough technology students by antirename · 2003-09-30 04:25 · Score: 4, Insightful

So, this guy thinks that too few students are going for science or technology degrees? I wonder why... lets see, scientists dont make much. Manufacturing is moving to the third world, and taking a hell of a lot of engineering jobs with it. IT is moving to India. Yeah, I'd be sure to pick one of those fields if I were trying to decide on a major. You can't blame the students for the decline in "the strength of the country", they're just looking out for themselves and trying to pick a career that might actually have a future.

Re:Not enough technology students by Prof.Phreak · 2003-09-30 09:07 · Score: 2, Insightful

On a plus side, those who do enter the CS world, are much more dedicated (and are actually interested) in this subject than they were a few years ago.

--
"If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy
Re:Not enough technology students by g0hare · 2003-09-30 15:08 · Score: 1

yeah - work my ass off for 10 years to get a ph.d. in (xxxxxx) only to see goof-offs with MBA's in management earn 10x more than me - great idea!

--
Vote Quimby!

It's also a fair bit of hassle to catch under NT.. by JMZero · 2003-09-30 04:25 · Score: 1

It makes a fake-password-grab-screen (which would otherwise be trivial) difficult enough to implement that it's not ever going to be a preferred attack on systems which use it.

The fake-password-grab-screen was a favorite in a few of my old CS labs.

--
Let's not stir that bag of worms...

Re:-1, JEALOUS BASTARD WITH SMALL DICK by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:26 · Score: 0

Very original, geek-o. Go back to watching your Hentai tentacle porn while you sit on your computer chair drinking your "Jolt" and eating twinkies.

It very well can be hit by accident! by harks · 2003-09-30 04:27 · Score: 2, Funny

When playing quake, using Ctrl for shoot, Alt for strafe, and del for looking downwards simultaneously! It has happened to me.

CTRL+ALT+DEL with one hand by elliotj · 2003-09-30 04:28 · Score: 1

Just out of interest, how many Slashdotters do CTRL+ALT+DEL with one hand? I had to force myself to use one hand to begin with, but it has become an entirely fluid motion now.

(for those of you who've never tried it)
All with the rigth hand:
Thumb on the ALT
Ring finger on CTRL
Middle finger on DEL

Re:CTRL+ALT+DEL with one hand by Wells2k · 2003-09-30 04:40 · Score: 1

I use an Apple USB keyboard on my PC. On this keyboard, the Alt key and the Windows key are swapped, so it is possible for me to do the three finger salute with just two fingers...my thumb laid out length-wise across the CTRL and ALT keys, and another finger on the DEL key.
Re:CTRL+ALT+DEL with one hand by thinkninja · 2003-09-30 04:51 · Score: 1

For natural keyboards (like mine; the ones that curve with a gap in the centre) it's easier to do thumb->alt, middle finger->ctrl, & pinky->del, FWIW (nothing).

--
"The number of Unix installations has grown to ten, with more expected." (Unix Programmer's Manual, 2nd ed.; june 1972)
Re:CTRL+ALT+DEL with one hand by elliotj · 2003-09-30 05:01 · Score: 1

Really? Are you sure you've tried it my way?

I have a natural keyboard too and your way is a stretch.

To clarify my way:
Thumb=ALT
Ring finger (the one to the left of your pinky)=CTRL
Middle finger (the one you show people to say "F&*! You")=DEL

It's like playing a chord on a piano.

FWIW, I most things under discussion in this forum are worthless!
Re:CTRL+ALT+DEL with one hand by resignator · 2003-09-30 06:47 · Score: 1

i use..
index finger on alt
3rd finger on ctrl
and pinky on the del
but i make a half fist with the 3rd finger and mash the key with my knuckle.
good luck...

--
"At first, we thought it was just another snake cult."
Re:CTRL+ALT+DEL with one hand by boresicle · 2003-09-30 07:46 · Score: 0

What the hell? Thumb on alt Index (curled striking with top of top knuckle) on Ctrl Middle on Del Ok, I've tried your's a few more times and found away that doesn't induce pain, but mine is still better. It's even easier left handed, although the hand has to travel farther. But 75% of the time I just use 2 hands, since they're both there anyway.
Re:CTRL+ALT+DEL with one hand by pe1chl · 2003-09-30 08:13 · Score: 1

In the days the CTRL-ALT-DEL was invented, there were no Alt and Ctrl keys to the right side of the spacebar, and there was no Insert/Home/PgUp/Delete/End/PgDown keygroup. The only DEL was the one on the numeric keypad.
Re:CTRL+ALT+DEL with one hand by SomeGuyFromCA · 2003-09-30 09:48 · Score: 1

actually, since my first machine that had keyboard reset was an Amiga 1000 (sequence mapped to an IBM keyboard would be something like Caps-alt-alt) I got used to two handing it.

that and I've mapped right alt to altgr

--
if the answer isn't violence, neither is your silence / freedom of expression doesn't make it alright

manual override by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:28 · Score: 0

i'm actually a little upset with linux, windows and OSX. frankly the CTRL+ALT+DEL always resets the computer. and there are times where i actually want it to reset the computer not bring up task manager. now continuing on. WTF is up with the power button not turning off a computer? and the eject key not ejecting the freakin CD. these were put there for a reason. and the reason was not to be software overriden. i work for the military and i have to ask once in a while what's gonna happen when a soldier needs to eject a CD before a cruise missle hits the base?

bottom line change CTRL+ALT+DEL back to a hard reset. change the power button back to actually shutting off the computer (not sending an interrupt to windows/linux to do a correct shutdown) and let the eject key freaking eject the CD. either that or bring me back to 1985 with huge freakin power switches.

thank god they haven't started this shit with floppies.

Re:manual override by Little+Brother · 2003-09-30 05:10 · Score: 1

Just for the record, if you hold down the powerbutton it WILL shut off the system, even if the OS can't receive the signal. But I agree, the button on the drive sould edject, there should be a power switch somewhere that instantly powers off (perhaps a second switch on the rear of the machine?) and anyone who remaps ctrl-alt-del to login should be laughed out of the country. (BTW in mac OS 10.2, ctrl-applethingythatIcan'trememberthenameofbecause Istillcallitopenapple-reset still does a soft reboot, just like it did on the early apple systems. Apple got it right :)

--

Little Brother, watching the watchers

Re:-1, JEALOUS BASTARD WITH SMALL DICK by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:28 · Score: 0

Sure.... I hope that hockey jock that crashed his Ferrari last night dies. He's in surgery last I heard.

God, just die already. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:29 · Score: 0, Insightful

Is Slashdot lacking in comedic sense so badly this crap can still get modded up?

At the very LEAST we could move onto security hole jokes, nevermind Linux has Windows beat in that area (ignoring patch times).

Re:On my other partition? by g-san · 2003-09-30 04:30 · Score: 1

Windows is on my other partition.

I used CTRL-ALT-DEL one last time on it.

I had to keep using a little button on the front of my computer to control Windows sometimes too...

Not immune, just more difficult by deinol · 2003-09-30 04:30 · Score: 3, Informative

Using Ctrl-Alt-Del for a login prompt doesn't mean you can't have a Trojan password gatherer. It just means you have to code it in Linux/*BSD where you can control the interrupt yourself. Make it bootable from floppy (grabbing extra data from HD or net if needed) and after a few login tries it 'reboots'. The floppy is long gone, and now it's back to the real NT (or 2k/xp) screen.

Nothing is secure when you can get physical access to the machine.

--
Got Apathy?

Re:Not immune, just more difficult by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 08:33 · Score: 0

Someone must have accidently hit the "+1 Informative" button instead of the "-1 duh, obvious" button.

Re:-1, JEALOUS BASTARD WITH SMALL DICK by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:32 · Score: 0

I'm not a hockey fan, as I am not a faggot Canadian, but I'll bet you that if that hockey player dies he got laid more often and had more fun in his short life than you will if you live to be 100 years old. Now you just think about that while you're writing more code that nobody will give a flying fuck about after you're dead and gone.

Hmmm by JMZero · 2003-09-30 04:33 · Score: 1

It's very possible to intercept the interrupt (which wasn't the normal INT 8 - I don't think ctrl-break was just INT 8 either) in protected mode (not sure what things looked like in real mode). Naturally, under protected mode such interception would be mediated by the OS.

Under NT 4, I'm not sure whether it would be possible to intercept without replacing/exploiting a driver - I don't believe so.

--
Let's not stir that bag of worms...

Re:Hmmm by merdark · 2003-09-30 08:19 · Score: 1

Probably not under NT4, no. I did it under DOS by directly replacing the interrupt.

Only in Winblows is it not possible by brunes69 · 2003-09-30 04:36 · Score: 1

KDE grabs Ctrl+Alt+Delete. So can Gnome. And these are userland programs. I am not sure if userland apps in Linux can grab CTRL+ALT+Fx however (switch console).

Re:Only in Winblows is it not possible by MarcoAtWork · 2003-09-30 04:55 · Score: 1

they must, because since I installed RH9 I'm not able to go anymore to a VT with ctrl-alt-Fx once I log into KDE (I can do it just fine from the xdm/kdm prompt, which means it's not the X config's fault).

I still haven't found what is grabbing it or how to disable it :(

--
-- the cake is a lie
Re:Only in Winblows is it not possible by secolactico · 2003-09-30 05:52 · Score: 1

Maybe the Linux/FreeBSD/whatever kernel simply forwards it to userland. WinNT doesn't.

--
No sig

I don't know about the Apples, but (+) by Mycroft_514 · 2003-09-30 04:36 · Score: 2, Interesting

The intertec Superbrains and Compustars had a pair of RED keys - one at each end of the keyboard. You had to depress BOTH of them to get a reboot. I was working on these machines when the IBM PC hit the market, as one of my then bosses went to the show where they were announced.

I think those machines had been around for 3 or 4 years by then. I know they pre date 1981 when I was working on them, as the Compustar was the "new and improved" version of the Superbrain.

And these machines were probably copying someone else as well, but we will never know who, because Intertec went the way of the dinosaur....

almost on topic web comic by RainbowSix · 2003-09-30 04:36 · Score: 2, Interesting

Here's a webcomic that's just over a year old that some of you might like, it is called ctrl+alt+del :)
http://ctrlaltdel-online.com/

The main characters are a few crazy gamers, and a linux guy who has a live-in penguin named Ted. Hillarity ensues.

--
--------
It's OK to be social, just don't tell anyone about it.

Re:almost on topic web comic by Wolfrider · 2003-09-30 13:17 · Score: 1

Thanx for the link. Looks a lot like Penny Arcade, but that 2nd strip in the archive was funny as hell...

--
.
== WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??

Re:-1, JEALOUS BASTARD WITH SMALL DICK by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:37 · Score: 0

I've been laid plenty (was married too).. That doesn't change the fact that if he dies, he's dead. In 100 years no one will give a shit about any of us. I'll just be around longer than that rotting corpse.

hahahahahahahaha! too funny..

Re:first post by Trigun · 2003-09-30 04:37 · Score: 1

I prefer ctrl-alt-del, as that is the way it is laid out on the keyboard. You know, the Qwerty keyboard, not the abcdef one.

When have IBM guys been worried about aesthetics?

Re:It's also a fair bit of hassle to catch under N by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:38 · Score: 0

They could have used any key combination, as long as they used their own key handler (instead of BIOS). There's really no good excuse for using ctrl-alt-del for login.

what do you mean, can't be struck by accident? by ebcdic · 2003-09-30 04:38 · Score: 1

I have more than once inadvertently rebooted by using the backwards-kill-sexp command in emacs.

Re:what do you mean, can't be struck by accident? by Little+Brother · 2003-09-30 05:05 · Score: 1

That's why I use vi
/me ducks and watches the armies of flaming trolls approach.

--

Little Brother, watching the watchers

did you read the OS documentation? by oliverthered · 2003-09-30 04:39 · Score: 4, Informative

Ok, so I didn't read all of it either, here's howto and ahy to use sysrq under linux 2.6 /usr/linux-beta/Documentation/sysrq.txt Edit ed for lameness, have fun "Linux Magic System Request Key Hacks Documentation for sysrq.c version 1.15 Last update: $Date: 2001/01/28 10:15:59 $ * What is the magic SysRq key? It is a 'magical' key combo you can hit which the kernel will respond to regardless of whatever else it is doing, unless it is completely locked up. * How do I enable the magic SysRq key? You need to say "yes" to 'Magic SysRq key (CONFIG_MAGIC_SYSRQ)' when configuring the kernel. When running on a kernel with SysRq compiled in, it may be DISABLED at run-time using following command: echo "0" > /proc/sys/kernel/sysrq Note that previous versions disabled sysrq by default, and you were required to specifically enable it at run-time. That is not the case any longer. * How do I use the magic SysRq key? On x86 - You press the key combo 'ALT-SysRq-<command key>'. Note - Some keyboards may not have a key labeled 'SysRq'. The 'SysRq' key is also known as the 'Print Screen' key. On SPARC - You press 'ALT-STOP-<command key>', I believe. On the serial console (PC style standard serial ports only) - You send a BREAK, then within 5 seconds a command key. Sending BREAK twice is interpreted as a normal BREAK. On PowerPC - Press 'ALT - Print Screen (or F13) - <command key>, Print Screen (or F13) - <command key> may suffice. On other - If you know of the key combos for other architectures, please let me know so I can add them to this section. On all - write a character to /proc/sysrq-trigger. eg: echo t > /proc/sysrq-trigger * What are the 'command' keys? 'r' - Turns off keyboard raw mode and sets it to XLATE. 'k' - Secure Access Key (SAK) Kills all programs on the current virtual console. NOTE: See important comments below in SAK section. 'b' - Will immediately reboot the system without syncing or unmounting your disks. 'o' - Will shut your system off (if configured and supported). 's' - Will attempt to sync all mounted filesystems. 'u' - Will attempt to remount all mounted filesystems read-only. 'p' - Will dump the current registers and flags to your console. 't' - Will dump a list of current tasks and their information to your console. 'm' - Will dump current memory info to your console. 'v' - Dumps Voyager SMP processor info to your console. '0'-'9' - Sets the console log level, controlling which kernel messages will be printed to your console. ('0', for example would make it so that only emergency messages like PANICs or OOPSes would make it to your console.) 'e' - Send a SIGTERM to all processes, except for init. 'i' - Send a SIGKILL to all processes, except for init. 'l' - Send a SIGKILL to all processes, INCLUDING init. (Your system will be non-functional after this.) 'h' - Will display help ( actually any other key than those listed above will display help. but 'h' is easy to remember :-) * Okay, so what can I use them for? Well, un'R'aw is very handy when your X server or a svgalib program crashes. sa'K' (Secure Access Key) is useful when you want to be sure there are no trojan program is running at console and which could grab your password when you would try to login. It will kill all programs on given console and thus letting you make sure that the login prompt you see is actually the one from init, not some trojan program. IMPORTANT:In its true form it is not a true SAK like the one in :IMPORTANT IMPORTANT:c2 compliant systems, and it should be mistook as such. :IMPORTANT It seems other find it useful as

--
thank God the internet isn't a human right.

What about the other PCs? by jpvlsmv · 2003-09-30 04:40 · Score: 5, Funny

I mean, why isn't there a Ctrl-Alt-Gateway or Ctrl-Alt-Compaq? What makes Dell so special?

--Joe

Re:What about the other PCs? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 09:56 · Score: 0

Ctrl-Alt-Gateway

Because no one wanted a button with stupid looking milk cow spots?

For developers only?!? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 04:41 · Score: 1, Interesting

Why do I have the impression history's being re-written, here?

IIRC, (both the article and, huh, "Real Life") the "Three Finger Salute" came to be at the M$' request, as they did not want to see a reset switch on the original IBM PC. Real, physical reset switches already existed on microcomputers and could be used to take control of a machine without purging the memory (well, not entirely) and see the binary code/data structures loaded in RAM, this for reverse-engineering... or just to save your butt when sh*t hit the fan.

I vaguely remember having to reset a TRS-80 Model II (? or IV?) before it created more damage (sp?) and using a debugger (the one with the "spinning slash" in the top-right corner, IMSMR) to examine the contents of RAM to find some just-entered data to jot it down and re-enter it when we restarted the accounting application.

This was the kind of thing that scared the hell out of M$ because they thought everyone was out to steal their s/w. So a soft switch like the TFS could invoke some memory-wipping routine, foiling the techies' efforts to have a better understanding of what was going on.

Re:physically impaired? by ChristTrekker · 2003-09-30 04:42 · Score: 1

How about some of these?

--

Constitutionally Correct

Don't forget.. by MasTRE · 2003-09-30 04:42 · Score: 1

> ...and certainly not to have Windows users change their passwords or logoff.

Also, logging on!

--
Must-not-watch TV!

Ctrl-Alt-Delete for logon in WXP and W9x tricks by turkeyphant · 2003-09-30 04:44 · Score: 1

Yes, it is possible to activate the Ctrl-Alt-Del requisite in XP although it's a (fairly) hidden option. Control Panel holds no clues and I'm not even certain if it's possible through the administrative tools in the Computer Management Console. Still, all you have to do is hit [Windows+R] and type control userpasswords2 into the Run box. This presents you with a user settings control window from which you can add and remove users, alter privileges and change passwords. Inside the "Advanced" tab, you can force users to have to press Ctrl-Alt-Del to use the "secure logon".

Having said that, it's worth noting that in Windows 9x it's possible to block Ctrl-Alt-Del with a bit of minor coding. Sounds interesting...

--
Turkeyphant

Re:Ctrl-Alt-Delete for logon in WXP and W9x tricks by stanmann · 2003-09-30 06:35 · Score: 1

Or you could just set it to require Ctrl-Alt-Del when you are installing XP. Just like Nt 5.0, 5.1 asks if you want to enable that "security feature"

--
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed

Well... by JMZero · 2003-09-30 04:46 · Score: 1

At one time there was: ctrl-alt-delete is a special key (reboot) in real mode on old world PC's - this used to be relevant. The only reason to continue has been consistency, but that's not entirely worth discounting. If an average user saw "hit F12-Break to log in", they wouldn't trust it now. Perhaps the solution is to add a special key to the keyboard for logging in (and leave ctrl-alt-delete as an alternate for a while).

--
Let's not stir that bag of worms...

The first IBM PC by nullset · 2003-09-30 04:48 · Score: 1

I worked for a guy who used to work for IBM in the glory days.

In fact, he showed me the first PCjr board ever made! Because of design issues, it even had a second WIREWRAPPED board which they had to make b/c one of the chips didn't get designed in time.

I was in awe....

Why CAN'T we now have a single Ctrl-Alt-Del key? by Glasswire · 2003-09-30 04:48 · Score: 1

Since modern Win OSes don't do anything fatal when you do, the issue of not doing it for safety reasons is not there and on laptops in sleep modes you sometimes need it to login. When I'm mobile doing the 3-fingered salute is annoying - I want may laptop to have a Ctl-Alt-Del key!

(Of course, Linux doesn't like you doing Ctrl-Alt-Del, so we'd have to be careful, but Linux users are already more careful...)

Its a relief that... by bicho · 2003-09-30 04:49 · Score: 1

... I was wrong.
When I first read the title my first thought was.
"Hell! another patent/IP thingy!
Now who can save us all?"

Its a relief that this time it was not that case...

--

errera hunamum ets

Never had Aqua hang hard, huh? by caveat · 2003-09-30 04:49 · Score: 1

Happens to me every so often; kernel panics happen too, but much less often (last one was about 3 months ago). Aqua hanging is a real bitch - if you can ssh in and kill loginwindow, everything's great and dandy, but if you can't, it's time for a hard reboot.

--

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley

Two fingered salute by coinreturn · 2003-09-30 04:52 · Score: 2, Informative

Apple ][ Plus shipped with a hard "RESET" button not requiring any additional keys in combination. It had to be pushed pretty hard to make it depress, though. Unfortunately, it was somewhat close to "ESC" and occationally did get hit inadvertantly.

There was a switch on the keyboard controller that allowed you to change it to ctrl-reset.

Don't forget about Ctl-Alt-Ins by bbstone · 2003-09-30 04:55 · Score: 2, Informative

On the original IBM PC Jr., circa 1980, it had both soft-reset (Ctl-Alt-Del) and diagnostic mode (Ctl-Alt-Ins). Wouldn't it be great to boot into a diag mode and check memory, disk, video. Maybe these new bios' will give me back a feature from 23 yrs ago.

Ctrl-Alt-Del Key by The_Bad_Bob · 2003-09-30 04:57 · Score: 1

My keyboard (Cirque Input Center) actually has a Ctrl-Alt-Del key. Why don't all keyboards have this?

You're getting Dave Winer excited... by antic · 2003-09-30 04:58 · Score: 1

Hey, stop saying "userland". Dave Winer might get excited, and I wouldn't want to be sitting in front of him at bloggercon if Dave Winer got too excited...

--
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'

rtfa and off-shoring by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:03 · Score: 0

From the article:
Bradley says the "strength of the country" is at stake because relatively few students go into science or technology.

Tell me why any smart young person is going into a tech field when the tech industry is being shipped off shore? I can see science as being importatnt --- you have to have a few clueful/knowledgable people on shore to meta-program the off-shore drones.

My admiration goes to whoever... by RetiredMidn · 2003-09-30 05:06 · Score: 2, Interesting

...worked around the issue on the 80286 that there was no way to switch back to "real" (16-bit segmented addressing) mode from "protected" mode.

http://www.hyperdictionary.com/computing/protect ed +mode

IIRC, the IBM PC AT (which first used the '286 and implemented protected mode operations) would send a signal to the keyboard, which in turn reset the CPU (the only way to get back to real mode) and somehow got the machine to proceed with what it was doing.

After learning about that, I switched to the Mac and never looked back (even if the 68000 did have its own quirks...)

Re:My admiration goes to whoever... by pe1chl · 2003-09-30 08:27 · Score: 1

Not quite...
The keyboard has a serial interface to the system. On the AT, this serial interface is handled by a small microcontroller. This microcontroller accepts instructions from the 286 via two I/O ports.
There is a special instruction that tells the microcontroller to pull the RESET line on the 286. This is used (together with a special value in the RTC NVRAM) to signal a return from protected mode.

After this became really used, the slowness of the microcontroller quicly became a hindrance, and special hardware was added in clones and later models to quickly decode this instruction at the moment it was output to the I/O port and immediately reset the CPU instead of waiting for the microcontroller to act.

Three finger key combos by Our+Man+In+Redmond · 2003-09-30 05:08 · Score: 1

Anybody remember the "JKL" keypress in NewDOS for the TRS-80? It gave you a screen print, if I remember correctly.

It must have been useful, as Tandy (or whoever wrote TRSDOS for them) "borrowed" it in TRSDOS version 3. :)

Due to the way the TRS-80's keyboard was memory mapped, it was fairly easy to check for pretty much any combination of keys -- you just checked a particular memory address for a particular value. I'm not sure how you would go about it on a modern PC.

--
Someone you trust is one of us.

Re:Three finger key combos by pe1chl · 2003-09-30 08:10 · Score: 1

JKL = screen print
DFG = DOS command prompt while running another program
123 = debugger

Re:It doesn't matter what it is... (MOD PARENT) by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:09 · Score: 0

I'd mod this up if I had score left. I'm quite certain many windows admins know that the CTRL-ALT-DEL sequence in windows can actually be circumvented!

TACO YOU GAY FUCK by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:11 · Score: 0

Shut up and continue sucking on that big cock in front of you...

Re:Wow, this is really bad article.... by Epistax · 2003-09-30 05:13 · Score: 1

So what? It could have been shift-esc-break

No it couldn't. Well it COULD have but then it wouldn't have survived for any good length of time. You can't type that with one hand.

Dr. Dave Bradley by jackaphyr · 2003-09-30 05:16 · Score: 1

I was with IBM Delray/Boca in the PC biz from 83' to 87' ... it was truly an exciting time. I had the pleasure/challenge of working with him and MANY others ... I believe Dr. Dave wrote most of the initial PC BIOS/POST and later worked hard to preserve the PC "architecture and compatibility." ... been reading slashdot since early 2000 or so ... how time passes ...

Re:Why CAN'T we now have a single Ctrl-Alt-Del key by Wumpus · 2003-09-30 05:18 · Score: 1

Of course, Linux doesn't like you doing Ctrl-Alt-Del

You do know you can change the action taken on Ctrl-Alt-Del, do you? It's in /etc/inittab.

but Linux users are already more careful...

I'm not. Ever walked into a mainframe control room, asked: "What does the red button do?" and then pressed the red button? I have.

Hah, I win. SHIFT-CTRL-/-F12 by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:19 · Score: 0

IRIX uses this keysroke to kill the X server, all on a standard PS/2 keyboard too. No one, and I mean no one would would ever accidently hit that combination by mistake considering how painful it can be on your fingers unless you know the secret.

What about the space cadet keyboard? by Lodragandraoidh · 2003-09-30 05:21 · Score: 1

He didn't really invent the use of multiple shift keys. It was a well established functionality of the space cadet keyboard, used on MIT LISP machines back in the 70s.

--

Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain

Dr. Bradley as an instructor by codecool · 2003-09-30 05:23 · Score: 2, Interesting

I have been Dr. Bradley's Teaching Assistant http://courses.ncsu.edu/ece/ since January, and it has been a pleasure working for him. He is really a motivation. Down to earth and sharp, thats what makes him different from other famous people. Even as an instructor, he likes to maintain tasteful interaction with his students and the students love him too.

You have to see his "I love me" collection to really appreciate him though :-)

-es

Plug the computer into the clapper... by FatSean · 2003-09-30 05:31 · Score: 1

I mean, really...how often do you need a hard, immediate power-off? Press the fucking reset bottom to reset it, or just accept the fact that todays computers don't like to have the juice cut unexpectedly.

--
Blar.

Video of Bradley making fun of Bill Gates by swordboy · 2003-09-30 05:31 · Score: 1

Priceless

--

Life is the leading cause of death in America.

Alt Del Ctrl by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:32 · Score: 0

I've alway thought of Ctrl Alt Del as Alt Del Ctrl, as in "Alternative Delete Control", to quit something using the "wrong" way.

Uh, no it doesn't by multipartmixed · 2003-09-30 05:33 · Score: 1

It may kill XFree86, but equating X with XFree86 is tatamount to equating mail with sendmail, news with inn, qpopper with POP3, and Microsoft Windows with "Operating System".

I sure hope you're not an OOP programmer. OOP programmers who don't know the difference between an instance and class frighten me.

--

Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?

HERE'S THE VID! by swordboy · 2003-09-30 05:34 · Score: 4, Funny

The vid of Bradley vs. Gates. Hilarious!

--

Life is the leading cause of death in America.

Re:HERE'S THE VID! by Jeedo · 2003-09-30 10:00 · Score: 2

would someone be so nice as to provide a mirror? i cant seem to be able to play the stream with mplayer

accident? by CaptnMArk · 2003-09-30 05:35 · Score: 1

>He also says he chose those keys specifically as it's not a key sequence that can be struck by accident.

I can 100% confirm this is not true :) hehe

No No No!!! by GutterBunny · 2003-09-30 05:36 · Score: 1

He didn't invent Ctrl-Alt-Del! I did! I was the one!

BAHAHAHAHA!!

Albert Gore Jr.

--
managers...why god invented purgatory

Re:No No No!!! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 06:22 · Score: 0

Hey, fucksaw. Why not come out of your cave of nerdness and read some history. Take a peek at this one, fagspawn:

Myth: Al Gore claimed he invented the Internet.

Fact: Al Gore never made that claim. His actual words were "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet."

Gore took the credit because he held the hearings, wrote and sponsored the legislation which expanded the Internet from the Arpanet of the 70's into the Internet of today. It was much the same way a politician takes credit for building a road or an airport without doing any of the physical labor.

Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf, the acknowledged Fathers of the Internet, wrote,

"The fact of the matter is that Gore was talking about and promoting the Internet long before most people were listening. We feel it is timely to offer our perspective. As far back as the 1970s Congressman Gore promoted the idea of high speed telecommunications as an engine for both economic growth and the improvement of our educational system. He was the first elected official to grasp the potential of computer communications to have a broader impact than just improving the conduct of science and scholarship."

Sources: The Register, Campaign Lunacy Chicago Tribune

While the Vice President may have chosen his words poorly, he was instrumental in the creation of the Internet.

From http://www.kings.edu/twsawyer/y2kelect/honest-al.h tml

Eat a dick.

Guy-who-reads-a-lot Jr.

You, sir... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:37 · Score: 0

are an ignorant ass.

Re:You, sir... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 06:08 · Score: 0

My thoughts exactly. I keep wondering how all these people in here get some many blue screens in Windows. Then I remembered that the half of the lusers in here that don't run a Mac are probably using AMD shit.
Re:You, sir... by danielsfca2 · 2003-09-30 08:02 · Score: 1

Nope. But you're actually a humorless twit. It was funny.
Re:You, sir... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 08:13 · Score: 0

If Slashtards mod it up, it must be funny!

Ass.

The Reboot Claw by Nakito · 2003-09-30 05:38 · Score: 1

Is ctrl-alt-del too complicated for you? This tool could simplify your life.

Properly known as a SAK (Secure Attention Key) by Elladan · 2003-09-30 05:38 · Score: 5, Informative

This feature is properly known as a SAK - Secure Attention Key. It's an old security feature used to prevent hijacking of trusted consoles, as you said, and is implemented on many systems. The perennial place where it's needed is university computer labs, where logging in and then leaving a fake login prompt running to capture passwords is has always been considered good clean fun. (To implement it properly, one should print a "wrong password!" message, and then exit the user session completely giving the user the real login prompt)

The basic idea is that the OS traps the SAK and does something obvious (like give you a login prompt) to keep a user from running a program pretending to be the OS. Since the OS doesn't let the user handle the SAK, security is maintained.

Linux supports SAK, however it's never really been properly deployed by distributions. Part of the reason is that nobody's ever really standardized on what the SAK key should be. If SysRQ is enabled, than Alt-SysRQ-k will cause a SAK event in the kernel. Otherwise, the keyboard driver can be configured by root to use any key sequence. One key sequence I've seen used is Alt-SysRQ-PageDown, but there's really no particular standard.

When SAK is raised in linux, all programs running on the current terminal are force-killed. It's then expected that init will provide a new login prompt there.

This leads to the second problem with SAK on Linux, namely that most users run X on workstation machines. If you SAK while X is running, the kernel kill -9's X... Which trashes your video card, leaving the system in an unusable state. Which is probably not what you wanted. Some video drivers and cards in X may be stable enough that, if you're running xdm/gdm/kdm etc., it may be able to restart X and give you an X11 login prompt - but the console will still be trashed, so you won't be able to exit out of X afterwards (or eg. with ctrl-alt-f1). It used to be the case that you could store the video settings for your console and run a program (eg. restoretext etc.) to fix them, but that hasn't worked on any modern video card in years. In addition, if you just escape out of X and then fix the console, X will re-trash your console as soon as you return to it, since it only stores the console settings from when X was started, not the current settings. Hence, X and your console program get in a fight and you probably end up crashing the video card and having to pull the power plug out or something if you do this a lot.

Confusing things even more, XFree generally defines its own internal "SAK"-like key sequence, Ctrl-Alt-Backspace. This isn't actually an OS-level SAK though, it just instructs X to quit. And not surprisingly, it often doesn't work due to XFree bugs (and may be trappable by user apps).

Re:Properly known as a SAK (Secure Attention Key) by Cederic · 2003-09-30 07:04 · Score: 1

>> The perennial place where it's needed is university computer labs, where logging in and then leaving a fake login prompt running to capture passwords is has always been considered good clean fun. (To implement it properly, one should print a "wrong password!" message, and then exit the user session completely giving the user the real login prompt)

Heck, that brings back memories! :)

~Cederic

Imagine That by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:43 · Score: 0

> He also says he chose those keys specifically
> as it's not a key sequence that can be struck'
> by accident.

Ummm, imagine that...

Re:-1, JEALOUS BASTARD WITH SMALL DICK by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:44 · Score: 0

Who else thinks this is one guy arguing with himself?

Wow, someone who can't take a joke! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:46 · Score: 0

Maybe we should have a new /. requirement that all jokes made have to be realistic.

Then after that we can require that everyone on slashdot has to find the joke funny for a joke to get modded funny.

control - open Apple - reset by option8 · 2003-09-30 05:48 · Score: 1

i guess "control-alt-delete" predates the apple][ "control - open apple - reset" key sequence. i think i may have even seen a t-shirt with that on it once...

i don't suppose the first apples had such things, but i vividly recall the apple ][ (and // for that matter) did. i can't remember if it rebooted the bugger, or just dropped it out of the running app...

i guess it evolved into the mac's command-option-escape (which is much easier to hit with one hand, while the other is giving the more appropriate "one finger salute" to the unresponsive program... and the whole slew of other two-handed startup key sequences (control-option-P-R = zap PRAM), interrupts (command-control-powerkey), and FKEYs (command-shift-3 = screenshot)

sigh. i had a point. i really did.

oh yeah. when did this whole business make its way onto platforms other than IBM PCs? i.e. when did apple adopt it? prior to the ][?

--
- Entertaining Bits from the Ancient Kernel Tree

Re:control - open Apple - reset by metachimp · 2003-09-30 08:07 · Score: 1

I have an Apple ][ plus down in my garage, and there is no Open Apple key on it. I don't think that key appeared until the Apple ][e. On that Apple ][, if Ctl-C doesn't help, you reach around the back and turn it off and then on again.

--
The system has failed you, don't fail yourself. --Billy Bragg

Actually my cat pressed on ctrl alt del sunday! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:48 · Score: 0

Actually my cat pressed on ctrl alt del sunday
so I would not agree with the belief that it can't
be accidentaly pressed.
My kitty thought that I wasn't paying attention
so she came walking on the keyboard with a loud
purr.
Somehow she managed to have her paws in the correct
spots. I was downloading some files so it didn't
make me very happy.
She's so sweet though ...

Re:-1, JEALOUS BASTARD WITH SMALL DICK by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:49 · Score: 0

Aye!

Wow, another Slashpussy who's easily offended! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:50 · Score: 0

Go figure.

Hmmm...Fast User Switching, anyone? by Atario · 2003-09-30 05:51 · Score: 1

I didn't realize Ctrl-Alt-Del (which, for some odd reason, I always say as "Alt Control Delete") did anything more than bring up the login box.

So...is there something in XP's Fast User Switching that ensures this same security (for whatever it's worth)?

--
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt

Re:Hmmm...Fast User Switching, anyone? by 1g$man · 2003-09-30 08:04 · Score: 1

No, there isn't, which is why Fast User Switching isn't enabled on a machine which connects to a domain (and should otherwise be disabled if security is a priority).

MOD VIDEO UP! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 05:54 · Score: 0

hahah that video is funny as all hell

SGI had something similar by PotatoHead · 2003-09-30 06:03 · Score: 2, Funny

They did not want users just performing the action, so they made it both non-accidental and hard to remember.

Called it the Vulcan Death Grip

Pressing the following 4 key simultaneously will cause the kernel to
kill the Xserver. Under normal circumstances it will get restarted
again automatically.

left-shift
left-control
F12
keypad-/

--
Blogging because I can...

"Warm Start" buttons by TheSync · 2003-09-30 06:07 · Score: 1

Back in "the day," I remember a TI microcomputer with a "Warm Start" button, essentially a single key Ctrl-Alt-Del.

Hard reset button by teamhasnoi · 2003-09-30 06:07 · Score: 1

Actually, some Northgate Omnikey keyboards *do* have a hard reset button on the back of the keyboards. I can recall hitting it accidentally when I was moving the keyboard, and Windows 95 went buh-bye.

Later, I thought it was a pretty useful feature.

ctrl-alt-del on s/390 by licketyspit · 2003-09-30 06:10 · Score: 1

reboots the system... it's odd, we've had to tape off those keys and put a note on the monitor.

The real Dr. Bradley by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 06:14 · Score: 0

I have been Dr. Bradley's Teaching Assistant http://courses.ncsu.edu/ece/ since January, and it has been a pleasure working for him. He is really a motivation. Down to earth and sharp, thats what makes him different from other famous people. Even as an instructor, he likes to maintain tasteful interaction with his students and the students love him too.

You have to see his "I love me" collection to really appreciate him though :-)

-es

So his intentions were good... by El · 2003-09-30 06:16 · Score: 1

... but he's still responsible for the fact that one-handed people can't even login to windows!

--

"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney

Re:So his intentions were good... by NerveGas · 2003-09-30 06:29 · Score: 1

I can hit ctrl-alt-delete with only my right hand without much trouble at all. Shoot, now that I try it, it's even easier with my left hand.

steve

--
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.

Why Ctl-Alt-Del (by Dave Bradley) by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 06:17 · Score: 4, Insightful

On the original PC keyboard there were only 83 keys. There was a single CTL key, a single ALT key (above and below the left hand shift key respectively) and a single DEL key (on the far right of the keyboard, just to the left of the big + key). I'd post a picture if I knew how. So it was definitely two handed.
There were 8192 bytes available for the IBM PC ROM BIOS. We used about 8180 of them. Two of the keys needed to be shift keys (for code conservation) and I picked the "newest" shift keys. The third key was picked to be as far away as possible, and "DEL" was a better mnemonic than "+".

Re:Why Ctl-Alt-Del (by Dave Bradley) by BarryA · 2003-10-01 00:02 · Score: 1

He's the real deal. I've known Dr Bradley for 6 years (He was my first manager at IBM), and while I'll be the first to admit his 15 minutes of fame have been stretched, he deserves every minute of it.
</SHAMELESS_NAME_DROPPING>
His "History of the PC" presentation is truly worth seeing, he's presented it to several colleges around the U.S.
In fact, it was "Dr Dave" who brought the first PC prototype to Gates himself. He recalls Ballmer answered the door....
Congrats Dave!
Barry
PS : Adding to his 15 minutes of fame : Final Jeopardy Question
Re:Why Ctl-Alt-Del (by Dave Bradley) by Ciggy · 2003-10-01 07:20 · Score: 1

So nice to have a left-handed keyboard: the left hand CTRL and ALT keys are in easy reach of the DELETE key just above the arrow keys, between the numeric keypad, on the left and the main keyboard on the right.

--

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet;
A chrysanthemum by any other name would be easier to spell

On my keyboard by pommiekiwifruit · 2003-09-30 06:17 · Score: 1

The labels for the cursor right and cursor down keys are completely worn off. Shift and Enter are quite worn.

On the alpha keys, C S O and L are much more worn than E.

are you blind or just retarded? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 06:24 · Score: 0

read his response, numbnuts

"in the event of a real disconnect, of course, the comment would never have been posted, but that's a suspension of disbelief that myself and other Slashdot readers are prepared to accept"

Re:are you blind or just retarded? by li99sh79 · 2003-09-30 06:38 · Score: 1

according to the optomotrist option a.
-sam

--
I was just here, where did I go?

Re: that's nothing. My monkeys were finishing a by usurper_ii · 2003-09-30 06:24 · Score: 1

shakespearean sonnet...after many years of much random crap banged out, when one of the stupid animals hit ctrl-alt-del!

Say, that reminds me of a Usenet joke...

Usurper_ii

--
Ron Paul

Good Lord, that's awkward! by multipartmixed · 2003-09-30 06:27 · Score: 1

And it's not like playing a chord on the piano, crossing your fingers like that would get you slapped in my class. If you wanted to imitate playing a chord (on the world's most awful piano), use thumb/alt, ring/ctl, pinky/del.

This instead, I think you'll find it easier (assuming you can play an octave on your right hand) -- thumb/alt, index/ctl, middle/del. Then you can tap del easily as many times as you need to.

--

Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?

NW GINA.DLL? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 06:30 · Score: 0

Who is responsible for the opposite sequence? You can find it in the VA version of the DLL; VA GINA.DLL

Re:Wow, this is really bad article.... by bahamat · 2003-09-30 06:32 · Score: 1

And the reason MS used it for login in NT 3.1 was for security.

This is completely wrong. There is nothing inherently more secure about those keys than any other keys on the board. To quote you, "it could have been shift-esc-break". There's nothing special about it. They chose that key combo because everybody and their mother knows about it and they had too hook the BIOS so that people wouldn't blast their system every time it crashed. And contrary to popular believe it can be hooked in windows just like every key sequence. The next time you're at Barnes & Noble press ctrl+alt+del and see what happens.

Oh lighten up by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 06:33 · Score: 0

" are an ignorant ass."

You are a pompous ass. I prefer ignorant to pompous.

So lighten up. Windows crashes. Get over it.

Re:Oh lighten up by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 06:49 · Score: 0

I prefer ignorant to pompous.

Hah...you said it, not me.

And try running Windows without your precious Snood or Bonzai Buddy, you ignorant shithead.

MOD PARENT UP, MOD GRANDPARENT DOWN by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 06:37 · Score: 0

Right on. This junk anti-MS humor is as old and stale as the moon. Let's take the oversized crayons away from these groupthinking slashbots and give the adults a bigger voice. PLEASE!

Too funny! (and mod parent UP!) by Augusto · 2003-09-30 06:41 · Score: 1

Why did Bill react light that?

He should have just laughed it off. His reaction is even more embarassing.

You'd think a carefree super billionare would have some type of a sense of humor.

Thanks for the link

--

- sigs are for wimps.

Re:Too funny! (and mod parent UP!) by mantera · 2003-09-30 07:00 · Score: 1

i think bill gates was a little surprised with this and could figure out for a moment what the implication was. My guess is that he might've been either too distracted and absent-minded that the sudden attention and laughs with him being the focus of attention surprised him, or that he didn't know what the implication was 'cos i think a likely misunderstanding was that many accused microsoft of profiting from the inventions of others or that others invent things and microsoft steals them. After all the anti-trust case and "freedom to innovate" was still sore at the time.
I don't think he got the idea that the reason he made it famous was that windows crashed so often that everyone had to use ctrl-alt-delete.
Re:Too funny! (and mod parent UP!) by johannesg · 2003-09-30 07:19 · Score: 1

I don't think he got the idea that the reason he made it famous was that windows crashed so often that everyone had to use ctrl-alt-delete.
On the contrary, the expression on his face clearly shows he understands full well what is implied - maybe he was not anticipating the comment, but he sure understands what is being said. The next remark by David Bradley makes clear the hidden meaning was intentional, too.
Is there some way I can download this video and save it for posterity? If I click on the link I can just play it, but there does not seem to be a "save" button.
Re:Too funny! (and mod parent UP!) by mantera · 2003-09-30 07:49 · Score: 1

i listened to it a few times but i can't figure out what bradley is saying in the "next remark"... i could only hear something like "blah blah log-off"... what did he say? and what was "the hidden meaning"?
Re:Too funny! (and mod parent UP!) by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 08:20 · Score: 0

Dude, either turn up your speakers or get a new battery for your hearing aid. He says "...for the Windows NT logon...".
Re:Too funny! (and mod parent UP!) by CowboyMeal · 2003-09-30 09:05 · Score: 1

Clickety Click

--
Your credit card information wants to be free.
Re:Too funny! (and mod parent UP!) by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 09:14 · Score: 0

Wow. That awful app did nothing but crash horribly.
And they want forty bucks for this shit?
Re:Too funny! (and mod parent UP!) by CowboyMeal · 2003-09-30 09:52 · Score: 1

What OS are you running it on?

--
Your credit card information wants to be free.
Re:Too funny! (and mod parent UP!) by Lord+of+Ironhand · 2003-09-30 11:30 · Score: 3, Informative

I captured it to a 4.4M file with mencoder:
mencoder -ovc copy -oac copy -o ctrlaltdel.asf -forceidx mms://a644.m.akastream.net/7/644/674/t080901_1130_ 001/cnetnews.download.akamai.com/674/t080901_1130_ 1_hi.asf

(remove any spaces from the mms:// address)
You can probably transcode it to a less sucky format if you want, RTFM.
Re:Too funny! (and mod parent UP!) by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 12:41 · Score: 0

2K SP4
Feed it the URL to the asx, set the destination to my desktop, and go... Boom. Illegal op.
Re:Too funny! (and mod parent UP!) by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 12:51 · Score: 0

I got the same problem. XP SP1. The thing just crashes when I feed it the URL/download folder/name and hit OK.

Oh well. I'm sure there's free software that'll do the same.

...Ah, there we go. There's mencoder which is part of mplayer, and mmsclient. I need to boot into Linux to get some work done anyway, so I'll try one or both.
Re:Too funny! (and mod parent UP!) by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 13:00 · Score: 0

God damn, and the uninstaller doesn't work.
What the hell are you doing foisting this overpriced shareware garbage on us?
Re:Too funny! (and mod parent UP!) by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 13:04 · Score: 0

The installer sticks the uninstall.log file in c:\windows. It also fails to delete the cocksoft program group. Here's a hint: delete the items in the group, THEN delete the group.

It also doesn't account for config.ini in the cocksoft program folder, which needs to be removed before removing the folder itself.

Gah. Friggin' amateur.
Re:Too funny! (and mod parent UP!) by mysticwhiskey · 2003-10-01 00:57 · Score: 1

To me, it sounds like "I meant that [he] used it for the Win NT logon" (or something like that, going by memory).

--
Stuck down a hole! In the middle of the night! With an owl!
Re:Too funny! (and mod parent UP!) by Anonymous Coward · 2003-10-01 01:06 · Score: 0

"Cocsoft.com"? That's terrible.
Re:Too funny! (and mod parent UP!) by mantera · 2003-10-01 04:10 · Score: 1

what's its use for the windows NT logon?

this article is just another chance... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 06:42 · Score: 0

for the rabid linux fanbois to get a few jabs in at MS. Not that I am a big MS fan but for crying out loud...it just seems so petty and stupid. Im not new here, this is just getting old and played.

it's just a software reset by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 06:44 · Score: 0

The article goes way over the top. ctrl-alt-del is just a stupid software reset. there's nothing whatsoever mysterious about it.
I'd value the NMI (non-maskable interrupt) to be tied to a button on the front of the computer, a bit harder software reset that wouldn't fail if some program merely hoses PS/2/USB drivers, or just grabs the keyboard I/O at a really low level.
Solaris stop-A or Linux magic-sysrq are much more useful. sysrq can for example be told to reset keyboard, sync and unmount harddisks (thus minimizing data loss due to crash..)

Related Article. "Any" key inventor found by Chatmag · 2003-09-30 06:45 · Score: 1

Press any key to continue

--
Pete Carr Owner Chatmag.com

Oh please by badboy_tw2002 · 2003-09-30 06:49 · Score: 1

The same people here complaining about CTRL-ALT-DELETE as unintuitive probably know every emacs and vi keybinding by heart.

Re:Wow, this is really bad article.... by kevlar · 2003-09-30 06:53 · Score: 1

What a load of shit. I wrote a program in Pascal that did precisely this. It was a TSR that would catch the CTRL-ALT-DELETE events and do my dirty work for me.

hey lamer by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 06:55 · Score: 0

On my non-Windows OS's, I use any fucking software I want, and none of it causes me to have to reboot.

Re:Hey lamer by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 09:55 · Score: 0

Explains why windows swaps to disk so hard after it's been up for a few days. It's all that caching. Slows the machine down.
Re:Hey lamer by cbiltcliffe · 2003-10-01 03:53 · Score: 1

Windows is using the RAM as cache you fucking dumbass.

Nice mouth. You kiss your girlfriend with that? Oh, wait...that's right.....you don't have a girlfriend....

You want your filesystem to be cached in RAM, so that you can access it quicker.

So Windows just grabs random files from the hard drive in the hope that they might be the ones needed from the 100+ GB of files that are available in this machine?! That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard!
I can see frequently used files being kept in memory after they're loaded, but when you don't load any files, there's nothing that's frequently used.

--
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......

Why was this modded up? by Overly+Critical+Guy · 2003-09-30 06:56 · Score: 2, Interesting

Wow, someone just claims something and it's instantly "+5" because it's anti-Windows.

It still needs reboots.

No, it doesn't. This is the point in which I mention my machine runs every day without being rebooted. We just leave our machines on. Only when we patch do we reboot, but that's not often since we're behind a firewall anyway.

It acts better once rebooted.

I've noticed no difference whatsoever.

In generalm Win2k and XP get alower the longer they run, and start experiencing problems like randomized icon images, windows that don't redraw, loss of fonts, etc.

Complete bullshit. I have never experienced "randomized icon images, loss of fonts, etc." and neither have any of my co-workers or anyone else I know. XP and 2k don't just magically get slower as you use it and start randomizing icons. If so, it's a memory leak in some app you're using. If you're losing fonts and icons, that is an issue you need to take care of. Windows has nothing to do with it.

A reboot fixes all. When my Win2k laptop gets to where it's using >350MB of RAM, and I've closed all the apps, it's asking to be rebooted.

Sounds like a severe configuration error on your end, either in hardware or software. Want to know how much memory Windows XP is using on my laptop right now with Dreamweaver MX 2004, Publisher 2003, Opera, and Voyager2 open? 132MB.

Your problem is not a common problem at all. Fix it and stop blaming Windows.

--
"Sufferin' succotash."

Re:Why was this modded up? by arkanes · 2003-09-30 07:34 · Score: 1

I had the disappearing font problem the other day. Confused the heck out of me - Courier "normal" just went away and everything was using Courier Italic instead. Browsing to the font folder & looking at the fonts seemed to fix it - probably some sort of corruption in the font cache. I know theres an option to rebuild your font cache in TweakUI, too, but I couldn't find it.
It's worth noting that this was the first time I'd ever run into the problem, and I've been using 2k and XP for... well, just about 4 years now (between them, of course).
Re:Why was this modded up? by Jboy_24 · 2003-09-30 07:58 · Score: 1

My 2k box needs to be rebooted prob once every 2 weeks. Not bad actually.

Why you might ask does it need rebooting where yours doesn't?

Maybe because over the course of the last 3 years, I've downloaded more shitty little apps, lieing around in various states of install due to failed uninstallations.

I clean up and defrag sometimes, but due to the typical developers work week (60+hrs on work computer, Linux), I really don't want to be bothered with my 2k box until something really bad happens. As long as counterstrike, Mozilla and my photoprinter run, I'm fine.

Compared though to my old Win 98/NT 4 and my nightmare with ME, 2K stands the test for lack of daily maintance with moderate speed problems.

BTW, I just got a new gaming box, going to reinstall all my programs, and start fresh, with 2k.
Re:Why was this modded up? by the+web · 2003-09-30 08:00 · Score: 1

Wow, someone just claims something and it's instantly "+5" because it's anti-Windows.

It still needs reboots.

No, it doesn't. This is the point in which I mention my machine runs every day without being rebooted. We just leave our machines on. Only when we patch do we reboot, but that's not often since we're behind a firewall anyway.

It acts better once rebooted.

I've noticed no difference whatsoever.

In generalm Win2k and XP get alower the longer they run, and start experiencing problems like randomized icon images, windows that don't redraw, loss of fonts, etc.

Complete bullshit. I have never experienced "randomized icon images, loss of fonts, etc." and neither have any of my co-workers or anyone else I know. XP and 2k don't just magically get slower as you use it and start randomizing icons. If so, it's a memory leak in some app you're using. If you're losing fonts and icons, that is an issue you need to take care of. Windows has nothing to do with it.

A reboot fixes all. When my Win2k laptop gets to where it's using >350MB of RAM, and I've closed all the apps, it's asking to be rebooted.

Sounds like a severe configuration error on your end, either in hardware or software. Want to know how much memory Windows XP is using on my laptop right now with Dreamweaver MX 2004, Publisher 2003, Opera, and Voyager2 open? 132MB.

Your problem is not a common problem at all. Fix it and stop blaming Windows.

You use Opera!?

--
__
Thou hast besquirted me, O leotarded one.
Re:Why was this modded up? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 08:04 · Score: 0

Complete bullshit. I have never experienced "randomized icon images, loss of fonts, etc."

---

I've got to agree with the original poster. This happens to me every once in a while and is one of the first signs of needing a reboot.
Re:Why was this modded up? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 08:26 · Score: 0

I can vouch that I've seen icon redrawing bugs/problems (some times it will draw icons on the wrong programs).

Just the other night I was copying some files around on my harddrive and (I imagine) the IE component decided to stop working. Mozilla was still working fine, but browsing for files or trying to load webpages in IE was a LOT slower. A reboot fixed this.

I havn't seen problems with font redrawing, but I can say Word 2000 does HORRIBLE jobs of rendering pages. I expect Office XP does a better job at this, but I often find myself having to tinker with it to get Word to update correctly at work.

If you are just using it in a really simple setup, such as you mentioned, of course you won't have any problems.
Re:Why was this modded up? by exebeoex · 2003-09-30 14:13 · Score: 1

I know exactly what the grandparent of this post is talking about when he talks about the icon scrambling thing. I have first hand experience with this. I noticed it happens a lot when i use win2k suspend feature, however i have not noticed it with winxp yet.

That's how alot of fiction by prisoner · 2003-09-30 06:57 · Score: 5, Interesting

is written. It's a revelation to some but people like Tolkein, King, etc often don't really know, beyond the inital premise, what's going to happen in their stories. In Stephen King's "On Writing" he claims a creative process that is more discovery than anything else. There isn't an all-encompassing outline drafted ahead of time. He starts out with an idea like "what if there was a cemetary that brought people back to life" and proceeds from there. He likens it to simply catching the story on paper as it falls out of his head. I don't know if this is what Tolkein was talking about but it works for alot of people.

Re:That's how alot of fiction by Echnin · 2003-09-30 07:48 · Score: 1

IIRC, Tolkien knew ahead what was going to happen in LOTR, but The Hobbit was written as he, well, wrote it.

--
Lalala
Re:That's how alot of fiction by dinojemr · 2003-09-30 08:23 · Score: 1

Tolkein said that in part because he based many aspects on mythology from various cultures. He had wanted to spread older literature that he had discovered so that it wouldn't be lost.

For the physically challenged by spectasaurus · 2003-09-30 06:57 · Score: 2, Funny

It's nice to see Microsoft helping out the physically challenged

Escapes by Animats · 2003-09-30 07:01 · Score: 2, Interesting

Related to this is the mess at startup. You know, "Press DEL to enter setup", "Press any key to select boot image", "Press ESC for altboot", all with delays.

The cleanest setup for this was on the Apollo Domain, which had a "normal/service" keyswitch. In normal mode, the system booted up with no intervention messages and no delays. In service mode, the machine booted up into a menu of service options. But that was before ordinary people knew about computers.

Hey lamer by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 07:02 · Score: 0

How about this:
Win2K box. Nothing running. After a reboot, it's using about 64MB for the system. Two days of idling later, it's using nearly 150MB.
150% increase in memory usage, and absolutely nothing has happened to cause it. Except Windows has been running.

I normally am pro-Linux and anti-MS, but you failed it here. Windows is using the RAM as cache you fucking dumbass. Linux does the same thing if so configured. Boot up Linux and watch the RAM get slowly used up. This is desirable! You want your filesystem to be cached in RAM, so that you can access it quicker.

Odd... by grasshoppah · 2003-09-30 07:03 · Score: 2, Funny

I always assumed the people responsible for the ctrl-alt-del was the Windows development team.

I guess those were the people responsible for the NEED for ctrl-alt-del

+1 Funny! by kamukwam · 2003-09-30 07:04 · Score: 1

This comment made me laugh!

Re:Wow, this is really bad article.... by Thing+1 · 2003-09-30 07:05 · Score: 1

It could have been shift-esc-break.

Not really... It's best to use multiple modifier keys and a single functional key. Or perhaps even all modifiers? Such as Shift+Left-Ctrl+Right-Ctrl, etc.

VMware uses all modifiers to break out of the VM: by default it's Ctrl+Alt, but it's configurable to a degree.

I suppose they could have used Shift+Esc+Break but then they'd have to have special code to handle the case where a user hit Shift+Esc -- it would then have to wait and see if they hit Break, or if they lifted their fingers then it would send the Shift+Esc to the application... A bit more work.

--
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.

More than you know by stewby18 · 2003-09-30 07:06 · Score: 2, Insightful

Would Alexander Fleming have said, "It wasn't a memorable event," when he discovered penicillin?

If you'd asked him not too long after, then yes, he probably would have. Most of the Fleming story is a myth; yes he discovered it by accident, but after relatively little lab work he gave up and stopped researching it. He didn't think it had a future as a useful drug, because it retained almost no effectiveness in its raw form. There's lots of evidence that he couldn't have cared less about penicillin for many years.

Until, of course, some more dedicated researches succeeded in making a good drug out of it, at which point he would have been glad to tell you that he'd know from day one that it would change the world.

So in addition to having a flair for the over-dramatic, the author of the article could use a better grounding in history before making really bad comparisons.

What about cats? by TheGrimace · 2003-09-30 07:07 · Score: 2, Informative

He didn't want people to hit control-alt-delete by accident.

Sure, difficult to hit by accident for humans, but as a cat owner, I can assure you that cats are perfectly proportioned to hit the three finger salute "by accident" when walking on a keyboard.

Well explained. by pr0ntab · 2003-09-30 07:07 · Score: 1

Anyone (parent included) want to write a few emails to some XFree guys asking for proper support for SAK events?

Or maybe what needs to happen is that SAK on linux sends SIGINT or SIGQUIT first to all processes on a terminal, and then if it takes too long for them to be reaped -> SIGTERM.

Does X exit "correctly" (as if Ctrl+Alt+Backspace is pressed) on SIGQUIT or SIGINT?

--
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice

Re:-1, JEALOUS BASTARD WITH SMALL DICK by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 07:13 · Score: 0

I'm not a hockey fan, as I am not a faggot Canadian

So just what kind of faggot are you then?

re by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 07:14 · Score: 0

Want to know how much memory Windows XP is using on my laptop right now with Dreamweaver MX 2004, Publisher 2003, Opera, and Voyager2 open? 132MB.

If you're going to use Windows for pussy shit like that, of course you'll never see any problems. Try using Windows for real computing and the flaws will emerge.

Now How About a Good Use for SysRq? by Nom+du+Keyboard · 2003-09-30 07:17 · Score: 1

Now how about a good story and use for the SysRq key?

--
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."

Re:Now How About a Good Use for SysRq? by shish · 2003-09-30 08:39 · Score: 1

> Now how about a good story and use for the SysRq key? /usr/src/linux/Documentation/sysrq.txt, duh

--
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
Re:Now How About a Good Use for SysRq? by shish · 2003-09-30 08:43 · Score: 1

Huzzah, I get post #666 and the newlines mess up. Anywho, check /usr/src/linux/Documentation/sysrq.txt

WTF? These line breaks are messed up (yes, I USED THE PREVIEW THIS TIME!)

--
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
Re:Now How About a Good Use for SysRq? by thebigmacd · 2003-09-30 09:54 · Score: 1

Try using Plain Old Text instead of HTML Formatted...
Re:Now How About a Good Use for SysRq? by shish · 2003-09-30 23:03 · Score: 1

That's exactly it - I *am* using "plain old text" /break - there should be a break before that, I pressed enter twice for a new paragraph

(break) /break

(break)

Right.... lines that start with '/' have their breaks discarded, WTF?

--
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment

well.. by ShadowRage · 2003-09-30 07:22 · Score: 1

"He also says he chose those keys specifically as it's not a key sequence that can be struck by accident."

well, he's wrong, I know people who've accidently struck those keys!

Doesn't work on Linux by Chemisor · 2003-09-30 07:27 · Score: 1

I don't know about your keyboard, but mine generates different scancodes for left and right alts. Only the left alt triggers a ctrl-alt-del event to init. The right alt does nothing unless you mess with your keyboard map.

Re:Doesn't work on Linux by phoenix_rizzen · 2003-09-30 07:48 · Score: 2, Informative

Must be your distro, then. Our RedHat and Gentoo boxes work with either the left or right CTRL+ALT keys. Same with our FreeBSD and OpenBSD boxes.

ADB reset on macs is sorta hardwired by bmidgley · 2003-09-30 07:30 · Score: 1

On an older mac, control-apple-powerkey is the reset sequence. It seems to be handled at a low level.

Each ADB device has an ID that can be examined when events come in. Several devices can coexist on one ID but you won't be able to distinguish where events come from. It's not a bad idea to repeatedly tell the device on the default port to move itself to another ID so you can see what else is using that ID.

I was trying to figure out how to disable the reset sequence under linuxppc when I noticed that if the ID of the keyboard was changed to something other than the default, the sequence would no longer reset the machine. So it's not really hardwired. You just have to hurry and change it from the default. (If someone unplugs and replugs in the keyboard, it will jump to the default again).

No, not exactly by devphil · 2003-09-30 07:33 · Score: 1

It hasn't been removed. It's a tweakable setting. Turned off, the login screen is sitting there asking for a username/password. Turned on, the login screen says "hit ctrl-alt-del to type in the username and password."

--
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)

I'm with ya. by pr0ntab · 2003-09-30 07:35 · Score: 1

I love the fact that it'll run on anything that's 6-12 months old. But at the same time, 95% of all the workarounds for bad hardware just cut out features that don't work as advertised.

I.E. the fix for bad DMA on some VIA IDE controllers was to not support UDMA66 and up, you know?

Anyway, I think that while it doesn't excuse the driver writers for Windows, I don't fault them for not wanting to only partially support hardware, because if the box SAYS DirectX 9, and you only get accelerated support for 8, who do you think the masses would direct nastygrams to?

Besides, Microsoft doesn't write hardly any drivers, they test and integrate ones the vendors give them.

Linux kernel guys have the benefit of feedback from every existing owner of some newfangled thing.

The real answer is: don't buy crappy hardware (for Windows or Linux). It makes Windows crash, and Linux kernel guys (or you) will waste time on it. You'll be much happier in the long run.

--
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice

Average User? by MarcQuadra · 2003-09-30 07:48 · Score: 1

Um, average users don't usually mind jotting their login and password down and leaving it on their desk so I can fix thier PCs while they're at lunch either.

Average Users have their passwords POSTED in their cubes, or taped to the back of thier calculators, or under the ridge of their lockable storage next to their lockable storage's key.

--
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails

I'm a frayed knot by RyanAXP · 2003-09-30 07:52 · Score: 2, Funny

You see, the example you gave most certainly does contain the entire LOTR trilogy, neatly and precisely encoded. The essentially trivial task of deriving the appropriate decoding algorithm is left as an exercise to the reader...

Re:I'm a frayed knot by xarak · 2003-09-30 08:04 · Score: 3, Funny

Yeah, well some people just don't make the effort to discover litterature. Half of them would probably stop when they found a bitmap encoding of X-Men.

The sad & sorry state of culture...

--
Atheism is a non-prophet organisation
Re:I'm a frayed knot by Elfan · 2003-09-30 09:10 · Score: 1

You do realize it isn't a trilogy, right? Just one book customarily published in three volumes.
Re:I'm a frayed knot by RhoryCalhoon · 2003-09-30 09:29 · Score: 1

Actually, it's six books, not three. But you are right, it is just convention now to publish it as three books.

--
www.freshlymixed.com
Re:I'm a frayed knot by Elfan · 2003-09-30 09:37 · Score: 1

No its customarily published in three volumes, thats why people think its a trilogy. You will note that the LOTR is divided into six sections, but those six are rarely published separately.

Depends... by Wolfier · 2003-09-30 07:56 · Score: 1

If he demands royalty for each keyboard made with the combination, he might be as rich as Michael Dell...

Now, if he demands royalty each time the combination is pressed, he should probably be richer than Bill Gate himself...

Dave's Modesty: A Student Perspective by gregoryb · 2003-09-30 07:59 · Score: 1

> He's much too modest.

Dr. Bradley? Modest!? Yeah right!! The writer of the article has obviously never been in his classes (or was just trying to land a job at IBM) :-)

Don't get me wrong, Dr. Bradley is an extremely nice guy and good professor too, but modest? hardly! lol. He has this thing he calls the "I Love Me File", which is just a collection of videos and articles on him and his life achievements (Ctrl-Alt-Del being one of several). He shows the video of him and Bill Gates (previously referenced by several people) and one when he was the question to Final Jeopardy and a whole slew of articles from his work on the early days of the IBM PC ... and he makes sure to show it to *every* class he teaches. Doesn't matter the subject, he'll work it in somewhere! (I've seen it twice already and would have seen it a third time, but I skipped out)

I guarantee this will be the next addition to his "I Love Me File"... but like I said, he's a great guy... so, congrats! GO Dr. Bradley! :-)

Re:Wow, this is really bad article.... by Foresto · 2003-09-30 08:03 · Score: 1

"You can't type that with one hand."

Actually, you couldn't type control-alt-delete with one hand either. Remember what the IBM PC keyboard looked like?

MOD PARENT UP!! by jschrod · 2003-09-30 08:05 · Score: 2, Interesting

a quick check seems to imply that the facts are OK, so this might really be Dave Bradley.

--

Joachim

People don't write Manifestos any more -- what's going on in this world? [Frank Zappa]

HAL and Dave by Simonetta · 2003-09-30 08:09 · Score: 2, Funny

"Open the pod bay door, HAL"

"I'm sorry, Dave. But I can't do that"

"Open the pod bay door, HAL. That's an order!"

"No, Dave. You only want to hurt me and endanger my mission"

"Control - Alt - Delete, HAL"

"No, Dav.... !@#$ !$$%$#@
.
.
.
YOU HAVE 192734937297382079328374 K bytes RAM.
press DELETE to set time and date

Doesn't work in Windows either... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 08:17 · Score: 0

Ctrl-Alt-Del hasn't made your compute reboot since Win98, duh. (Maybe WinMe, but I avoid it like that plague)

Score 5, Influential by SparklesMalone · 2003-09-30 08:20 · Score: 2, Funny

His legacy will outlive Arnold Schwarzenegger

Re:Wow, this is really bad article.... by Prof.Phreak · 2003-09-30 08:25 · Score: 1

In DOS you could capture ctrl-alt-del without any issues. It's when you moved to running your program under Windows (95), that's when the Windows thing would pop-up.

--

"If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy

ECS by GigsVT · 2003-09-30 08:33 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Someone needs to tell ECS that Ctrl-Alt-Backspace is kinda taken.

ECS seems to think that Ctrl-Alt Backspace is a good sequence to use for software power off buttons.

Which really sucks when you go to exit X and your computer turns off.

On the K7SEM there was a BIOS option to disable it, but the BIOS option had no effect. Cute eh?

--
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.

Re:Why CAN'T we now have a single Ctrl-Alt-Del key by easter1916 · 2003-09-30 08:40 · Score: 1

Similar to a newbie developer, playing with OS/400 for the first time. "Hey, what does PWRDWNSYS do?" D'oh!

Not much of a security feature by JimmytheGeek · 2003-09-30 08:49 · Score: 1

I tried out a software keylogger that captured login sequences, with passwords in clear text. It appeared to daisy-chain the keyboard driver, because when I ripped it out I had no keyboard.

Nasty bit of work. Mcafee did not detect the file (which can be polymorphic), did not detect the installation program. All it did was detect the downloadable compressed archive of the installation program. Very, very broken malware detection.

Unix servers unstable after NT released by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 08:57 · Score: 0

How many Unix servers have been rebooted in datacenters by Windows admins trying to "log on" to them before the monitor warmed up ?

software keystroke loggers will grab login by JimmytheGeek · 2003-09-30 08:59 · Score: 1

All you would need to set the trojan up is a local priviledge escalation exploit to install and you're in business.

While remote exploits for win32 are so common nobody bothers with the locals, I imagine blaster could have done it, too. Edit registry, upload file, done. At next boot, keyboard is owned.

I tried a demo keystroke logger to test my antivirus setup. (The antivirus signature was useless!) The full version is stealthy and can phone the captured text home. Nasty.

Re:Why CAN'T we now have a single Ctrl-Alt-Del key by Wumpus · 2003-09-30 09:04 · Score: 0

"Hey, what does PWRDWNSYS do?"

I think someone should sell IBM some vowels.

Inspire students to enter a dying job market by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 09:16 · Score: 0

From the article:

"Bradley says the 'strength of the country' is at stake because relatively few students go into science or technology."

Maybe, just maybe, fewer students will go into technology because all of those jobs are being sent overseas!

Re:Wow, this is really bad article.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 09:20 · Score: 0

I was always able to (I have an extremely long pinky).

BTW, I like how that article incorrectly refers to the "enter" key, critisizing the fact that "enter" isn't printed on it. As I recall, that key was always called "return" until some idiot decided to relabel it as "enter". Of course, I've never used either, my return/enter key has been relabelled to say "execute".

Even more difficult by hacksoncode · 2003-09-30 09:23 · Score: 1

Yes, one could write ones own entire operating system on that floppy and boot from it. Nothing really can prevent that except for Trusted Computing or something like it.

An interesting thing to note, though, is that BIOS's trap Ctrl-Alt-Del specifically and jump to their reset vector, which adds another singificant layer of complexity to implementing such a hack. And it means that you can't just boot to DOS and run a program that looks like Windows... Of course, anything can be gotten around modulo hardware reset buttons... You can remap the reset vector to code of your choosing (if you're careful :-)...

So, in that sense, it does matter what key sequence you use. It's a legacy reason, but a reason nonetheless.

This IS why it was used, but the logic is flawed by rufusdufus · 2003-09-30 09:38 · Score: 1

I worked at MS when they decided to use ctrl+alt+del for login. The people who made the decision were under the impression that it could not be trapped *by dos apps* that tried to steal passwords.
They were deeply mistaken. Indeed it is was not trappable using the int 16 interrupt, but easily trapped with int 9.
But, the decision had been made, bad design and all, and they weren't going to admit the mistake.
So the whole thing is a testament to the power of ignorance when it gets momentum.

Re:Sounds like a bad deal by artg · 2003-09-30 09:46 · Score: 1

From the AT bios listing : ;---- TEST FOR CONTROL KEY AND RESET KEY SEQUENCE (CTL ALT DEL) K29: ; TEST-RESET TEST @KB_FLAG,CTL_SHIFT ; ARE WE IN CONTROL SHIFT ALSO JZ K31 ; NO RESET CMP AL, NUM_KEY ; CHECK FOR INVALID NUM_LOCK KEY JE K26 ; THROW AWAY IF (ALT-CTL)+NUM_LOCK CMP AL, SCROLL_KEY ; CHECK FOR INVALID SCROLL_LOCK KEY JE K26 ; THROW AWAY IF (ALT-CTL)+SCROLL_LOCK CMP AL, DEL_KEY ; CTL_ALT STATE, TEST FOR DELETE KEY JNE K31 ; NO_RESET ;---- CTL-ALT-DEL HAS BEEN FOUND MOV @RESET_FLAG,1234H ; SET FLAG FOR RESET FUNCTION JMP START_1 ; JUMP TO POWER ON DIAGNOSTICS No hardware signal, but it must noisy in those IBM programming labs with all that shouting ...

Re:Right. In fact, by archen · 2003-09-30 09:52 · Score: 1

Reminds me of when I had a server which sat around and didn't do much so I set it up to be a remote terminal for people. I'm leary about ctrl-alt-del on a server so I just type in anything randomly, this time however I used:

ca::ctrlaltdel:/bin/echo "fuck you. I'm not shutting down"

So people are using this thing as a terminal, and every time the main server (elsewhere) would act quirky or the network would lag, or people who have been well trained by Microsoft would attempt to fix the problem by rebooting the machine by ctrl-alt-del.

Eventually I got a call that the computer in the main office was telling them to "fuck off". I'm like, "what? what do you mean?". So I went to look at it and sure enough, that's just was doing! After that I avoided being a smartass and just set it to doing nothing.

We all know... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 09:54 · Score: 0

...SCO did it first. Now, every time Windows crashes, we owe them $600.

3FS by dirvish · 2003-09-30 10:00 · Score: 1

I guess he is ultimately responsible for this...

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Instructions to download stream on FreeBSD by dodell · 2003-09-30 10:07 · Score: 1

and probably linux too.

get mmsclient (on freebsd this is /usr/ports/multimedia/mmsclient, you can also pkg_add -r mmsclient)

run

mmsclient mms://a644.m.akastream.net/7/644/674/t080901_1130_ 001/cnetnews.download.akamai.com/674/t080901_1130_ 1_hi.asf

have fun.

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Re:Instructions to download stream on FreeBSD by Unregistered · 2003-09-30 11:11 · Score: 1

doesn't mplayer handle streams now? The box i'm at would die if i tried to rum mplayer, so i'll check if home. If not, thanks for the heads up.

Re:Right. In fact, by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 10:10 · Score: 0

ca::ctrlaltdel:/usr/bin/uptime && echo "HELL NO!!!"

Actually, I prefer the one hand method.... by Kjella · 2003-09-30 10:17 · Score: 1

...it shows just how many times you've had to hit that combo when you can do it one-handed, not even looking, just slamming down on all three at once... You can do that with pretty much disgust too, if you try :)

Kjella

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Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings

I bet he regret's not patenting that. by Araxen · 2003-09-30 10:28 · Score: 1

With all the other crazy stuff you can patent. Please don't tell me he couldn't have patented that if he thought of it.

The any key... by decepty · 2003-09-30 10:30 · Score: 1

Hey, what about the guy who invented the any key? Doesn't THAT get more use?

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Be careful! Bears shouldn't consume large furry dogs.

Hey lamer by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 10:30 · Score: 0

WTF? How does caching slow the machine down? The disk cache isn't swapped to disk you idiot, that would be redundant. The instant RAM is needed that is used by the cache, it can be freed up because its just a cache and can be erased.

Read up a little about memory managers, filesystems, caching, and maybe a bit about kernels. You obviously haven't studied this stuff.

Wrong! by spitzak · 2003-09-30 10:38 · Score: 1

Hitting those keys generates the same interrupt as any other keys. If you point that interrupt at other code, ctrl+alt+del will no longer work.

Old PC BIOS's did actually check for this combination directly in the keyboard interrupt handler and reboot the machine. Thus if the interrupt was not pointed anywhere else it would always reboot the machine, even if the processor was stuck in a loop somewhere. So a crash that made ctrl+alt+del fail to work, while not impossible, was certainly rare, and often was called a "big red switch" crash since you had to turn off the power to get your machine back. All other keystrokes were just stored in a small queue by the interrupt routine and thus would not make any difference unless the processor executed instructions that read from that queue. This is probably what led you to think that ctrl+alt+del had some hardware significance.

I am reasonably certain that BIOS's after about 1986 or so were modified so this default behavior could be turned off. This was certainly a requirement as PC's started to be used in public-access devices such as info kiosks.

just deserts by pyrrho · 2003-09-30 10:58 · Score: 1

I think this might be just deserts for the fact that Microsoft tries to take credit for everything good about the PC platform... you'd think Microsoft invented it and every invention associated with it.

kind of a, you reap what you sow kind of thing.

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-pyrrho

Re:just deserts by E-Rock · 2003-09-30 11:19 · Score: 1

I'm not sure that accepting user ignorance is a proper attitude, no matter what the situation or company in question. Properly trained users cause enough problems as it is without encouraging the ignorant because it pleases your own biases.

Re:Sounds like a bad deal by RetroGeek · 2003-09-30 11:38 · Score: 1

it must noisy in those IBM programming labs with all that shouting

Yes, but remember the background. Before the PC is was just the mainframe, where there was NO LOWER CASE. IF YOU TYPED IN LOWER CASE, THE EDITOR WOULD CHANGE IT TO UPPER CASE.

AHH HELP, THE CAPS LOCK IS STUCK!

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I am a programmer. I am paid to produce syntax not grammar. Deal with it.

failed in Safari by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 11:48 · Score: 0

shit, I couldn't figure out from their code how to get a direct link to video. Any fix for this in mac OS X?

Well... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 11:50 · Score: 0

I've struck CTRL-ALT-DEL by accident...

Correct me if I am wrong by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 12:47 · Score: 0

but didnt the 3 key combination for restarting was there first with the original Apple computer (Ctrl, Apple key, Powerup key) in the late 70's before IBM was rushing to introduce a PC to compete with the Apple machine? All this guy did was to use different key mapping that essentially did the same thing.

he is modest, considering ... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 12:59 · Score: 0

He wrote significant portions of the original IBM PC BIOS, as I recall. I still have my signed copy of "Assembly Language Progrmamming for the IBM Personal Computer" by David Bradley.

Pay back for the Any Key Jokes by xclr8r · 2003-09-30 13:11 · Score: 1

Work as network support Helpdesk and when I ask clients to hold down "Control, Alt and Delete". I get the "well there's a "C-T-R-L key but I dont see a control key". Ohhhh the Horror
My Other Operating System is a Linux Distribution - My Screen Saver script @ work.

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Beware of those who profit off the docile and persecute the unbelievers.

not sure what you mean by pyrrho · 2003-09-30 13:36 · Score: 1

I think a person does have to be trained in their tools, but a carpenter doesn't have to know how to smith his own tools to be an expert carpenter, so it's a ballance.

However, my comment is just about being held to your own hype. Oh, it's all nice to be Microsoft and not say a word when your customers think you've invented the internet and do one better, help to give that impression, happilly play loose with details when it makes it seem to the masses that you are the great benefactor of this technological cornocopia, all possible because you have the brand at the top of the stack where the users can read it without a screwdriver. Yes, that's nice. But then, of course, you SHOULD NOT be suprised when people come and blame you that their logitech mouse is broken.

Same thing with Microsoft security. Yes, I agree, it's the admin's fault. But then, after more than a decade selling your product because "it's just a click" and down playing the need to know... um... what the fsck you need to click and why, like that you click makes it easier, easy enough for a monkey, well, you sort of ARE to blame for stupid admins. You actively stupidated them. You promoted their managers to seek out the stupidest of them. In unix you don't have that. You have companies like Sun that tell you to have an expert admin, that expect and admin to follow patches, etc, so on the unix side you can say, "get a better admin"... on the windows side you have to say, "ok, yeah, we were full of shit, you DO have to know what the machine is doing and even a little of the 'how' in order to administer it".

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-pyrrho

MSGINA (Re:Patent madness?) by NaDrew · 2003-09-30 13:54 · Score: 1

It uses the MSGINA.DLL and MS even explain how to do it on their website.

Link
MSGINA stands for "Microsoft Graphical Identification and Authentication DLL". The .DOC file on that page is pretty interesting reading--gotta love something that starts off with "Warning: Potential System Failure" even before the Introduction.

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Vista:XPSP2::ME:98SE

Kudos by salesgeek · 2003-09-30 14:12 · Score: 1

and a three fingered salute to your invention.

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-- $G

Alt Gr key by aaaurgh · 2003-09-30 14:25 · Score: 1

To those who are saying that they can press the Ctrl-Alt-Del sequence with one hand...

Don't forget that on the earlier PC keyboards, the right Alt key used to be marked "Alt Gr" and did not function the same as the left Alt key (some foreign keyboards still are, I believe). It was therefore almost impossible to reach all three keys with one hand since the left Alt key was the one required.

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Go permanent? In your dreams and my worst nightmares.

Re:Alt Gr key by pe1chl · 2003-09-30 18:51 · Score: 1

The marking on the key has nothing to do with the functioning. All PC keyboards send the same codes, independent of the printing on the keycaps.
If the right Alt key is different from the left is dependent on the keyboard layout (country) selected, and of course also on the operating system.
Re:Alt Gr key by aaaurgh · 2003-09-30 19:35 · Score: 1

I appreciate that the printing doesn't define the keycode and that the keyboard driver is responsible for the key mapping. That said, in the UK under W3.1 and DOS (the last time I remember trying this out and finding the AltGr didn't behave the same as Alt), the right alt key would not produce a ctrl-alt-del sequence, only the left.
Perhaps they've changed the drivers since to map the keys equally, but the original keyboards would produce different keycodes for the left and right Alt keys (and I believe the Ctrl keys also), both on XT and AT keyboards, and only the left worked originally even though either Ctrl key could be used.

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Go permanent? In your dreams and my worst nightmares.
Re:Alt Gr key by pe1chl · 2003-09-30 20:44 · Score: 1

Yes, the different keys produce different codes and the meaning is defined by the drivers (or in DOS: the BIOS when no specific KEYB driver is loaded).

The original keyboard had no right Alt key. Maybe some early clone keyboards with two Alt keys had them wired in parallel. But the later 101-key keyboards with two Alt keys always had this AltGr key on the international versions, and indeed in some drivers they will not do the same thing and Ctrl-AltGr-Del does nothing.

Here in the Netherlands these country-specific keyboards have almost ceased to exist, and US keyboards are now sold by default for nearly all computers. However, they do have a EURO symbol that can be accessed via the right Alt key and the digit 5...

You ][ newbies always crack me up. by seanadams.com · 2003-09-30 14:56 · Score: 1

I remember when everybody just said "apple". Then they came out with that blasted //e and you had an "openapple" and a "closedapple".

I'll keep my 64K and 40 columns, thank you very much.

Re:Sounds like a bad deal by mamba-mamba · 2003-09-30 17:00 · Score: 1

Heh heh.

Yeah, it's clear from that listing that there is no hardware signal in that system. But you say it's an AT, right? Things may have changed.

The reason I say that is that two years ago I used to work for a large company that made Intel architecture single board computers. I actually designed two SBC's. I am pretty sure that the keyboard controller (in the PIIX4E Southbridge) could cause an SMI in response to control-alt-delete. I mean, I know the Southbridge could launch an SMI, but there's a lot of stuff in that Southbridge, and I can't remember for sure. I'm too lazy to dig through the 200+ page datasheet. ;-)

The BIOS guy would know, but I'm not really in touch with him anymore.

MM
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By including this sig, the copyright holders of this work or collection unreservedly place it in the public domain.

No, Tolkien 'discovered' LOTR as he wrote by Anonymous Coward · 2003-09-30 19:17 · Score: 0

IIRC, Tolkien knew ahead what was going to happen in LOTR, but The Hobbit was written as he, well, wrote it.

No! LOTR was written over several years and although Tolkien knew that the ring was central from the outset, several of the major themes only emerged during the writing itself (see Tolkien's letters and the extracts of early drafts published by Tolkien's son). For example, the Strider character was originally a hobbit, and it took some time for Tolkien to recast him as a man, and then to realise that he was the King who would return. This all involved rewrites of the early chapters. Similarly, after finishing LOTR, Tolkien then tried to factor the Galadriel character back into his work that was eventually published as the Silmarillion and the Lost Tales.

Cheese by TangoCharlie · 2003-09-30 20:03 · Score: 1

Or wrote his first James Bond story!

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return 0; }

Two even more important combinations: by Bunji+X · 2003-09-30 22:59 · Score: 1

RUN/STOP-RESTORE and Ctrl-Amiga-Amiga

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The combined human population is enough to feed every living tiger for app. 28000 years.

Re:Right. In fact, by vidnet · 2003-09-30 23:22 · Score: 1

Hahaha, priceless!

(I made mine echo "Oh, for crying out loud\!", since I constantly tried to reboot dosemu.)

The real story of Ctl-Alt-Del by DrDaveB49 · 2003-10-01 00:06 · Score: 2, Informative

I had previously responded to a couple of comments, but now, after 48 unsuccessful tries to establish a slashdot name, I can do so with a real name.

(1) C-A-D was originally intended for internal use only, but since it quickly rebooted the machine back in the DOS command line days, it was used by all the application programs as a way to quickly start them up. Put in the app diskette -- to which you had already copied DOS, hit C-A-D, and the system reboots to your application.

(2) We had previously used a 3-key sequence on the System/23 DataMaster (with an Intel 8085 micro) as an "Easter egg" to invoke a debug monitor. Doing something similar on the PC was obvious. But I doubt that many of you have ever seen a DataMaster.

(3) The video clip that's been referenced is from the 20th anniversary celebration of the PC, August 8, 2001. There was a panel discussion with Dave Bradley (me, IBM), Dan Bricklin (VisiCalc), David Bunnell (PC Magazine), Rod Canion (Compaq), Bill Gates (MS), Andy Grove (Intel), Mitch Kapor (1-2-3) and Ray Ozzie (Notes). I was first -- alphabetically, if not financially -- and was asked about C-A-D. I had captured the clip from CNET.com shortly after the event. I supplied it to TechTV when I was interviewed by them on ScreenSavers, and they cut it in length -- while retaining the Bill Gates reaction shot. Microsoft used to have a transcript of the session on their site, but it's no longer there. There is a funny segment later on in which Bill Gates acknowledges that he's the author of Donkey.

(4) The entire development cycle of the IBM PC was from Sept 1980 to April 1981, when we released to manufacturing. About 7 months at a time when 3 years was the norm. So lots of things happened quickly -- and C-A-D was just one of them. Much of the PC design is inherited from the DataMaster.

(5) The original C-A-D was intended to be a two hand operation -- remember, the key layout for the original PC does not resemble current keyboards. We did provide a DOS Terminate and Stay Resident program that made the shift keys "sticky" so that the physically challenged could activate the keys one at a time.

Any other questions?

Abort, Retry, Fail? by warrensomebody · 2003-10-01 03:03 · Score: 1

... now there's a master-stroke!

You are a poor critic. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-10-01 06:06 · Score: 0

There are no memory leeks and "intermitant" BSODs.

That is interesting coming from an overly critical guy. leak!=leek. It is an easy mistake from someone that watches too much Martha Stewart Living. The spelling of "intermitant" should also have been corrected with "intermittent" rather than just quoting it. (By the way, the "!=" thing means "not equal".)

Please review Webster before posting.

Alright, modstalker by Theodore+Logan · 2003-10-07 14:31 · Score: 1

Disclaimer: This post is aimed solely at my anonymous modstalker, with whom I can only communicate in this way. If you moderated this post and are not my personal modstalker, I have to question your judgment. If you considered this post redudant because you think I made the same point gidds made, you are mistaken. If you cannot see why, maybe you shouldn't moderate math that is over your head. Since nobody else makes the point I was making, it could not possibly be for some other reason either, as the "redundant" appellation would then be inappropriate. "Off-topic," "overrated," sure, but redundant it ain't. But I don't even know why I'm writing this disclaimer, as the possibility of anyone but a modstalker moderating a discussion which died this long ago is infinitesimal anyway.

Dear Modstalker, you have been following me for a while now, as attested by the numberous "redundant" moderations I randomly receive (I assume that you have chosen that particular appellation not to get into trouble in M2. Very clever, young padawan). Unfortunately for you, you are unlikely to anger me this way, as I don't care much for moderation, although I admit that it saddens me that someone should dislike me so much as to waste all of his mod points on trying to annoy me. You have, however, peaked my curiosity.

So please answer me one simply question, in whichever thread you see fit, anonymously if you wish. C'mon now, it the least you can do, given all I have done for you lately (such as providing a steady stream of posts to mod down for no apparent reason). If you do me this little favor, I will in turn promise to pretend as if this crusade of yours is successful, and as if you are inflicting severe pain on me. The question is this: What have I done to upset you so, and why, oh why, do you seek retribution in this jejune manner?

Thank you for your time, and happy stalking!

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The Guy Responsible For Ctrl-Alt-Del

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