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Bill Gates Acknowledges Ctrl+Alt+Del Was a Mistake

Posted by timothy on from the tilde-backspace-left-arrow-was-taken dept.

theodp writes "If he'd had his druthers, Bill Gates told a Harvard audience, Ctrl+Alt+Del would never have seen the light of day. However, an IBM keyboard designer didn't want to give Microsoft a single button to start things up, and thus the iconic three-finger-salute was born."

6 of 665 comments (clear)

  1. Re:So why continue it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because accidentally pressing the windows key in the middle of a game would shut down an entire computer instead of momentarily piss off a gamer.

  2. Makes sense by Dunbal · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That was back when programmers were also engineers, and they realized the risk of accidentally hitting a single key and wiping the contents of RAM without saving. A complex key combination avoids accidents. I really don't see a problem with it. And considering that (most) keyboards still haven't evolved a "reboot" key, there doesn't seem to be great demand. Hell even the "Windows Start" key is probably the least utilized key on my keyboard, only good to tab me out of FPS games by accident and get me killed when I meant to hit Ctrl or Alt.

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    1. Re:Makes sense by swillden · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I had a keyboard once with a dedicated start/shutdown key.

      After shutting down my system a few times accidentally I threw that keyboard away.

      Apple keyboards have a power button on the keyboard. It's not the location or difficulty of hitting the key that matters, it's how it's handled. The approach currently used by Apple (but not invented by Apple, BTW) of "tap = request to shutdown, requires confirmation" and "press and hold means forcible power off" works just fine.

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  3. Why would you want a single button??? by TWiTfan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A single button that, if hit, would reboot the system???? That's is the stupidest shit I've ever heard. If you hit it by accident, goodbye to your work. Remember that when you hit CTRL-ALT-DEL in DOS, it didn't even give you a prompt to shut down, it just rebooted. Who in their right mind would want that in a single key??

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  4. Re:Redundant keys by Oligonicella · · Score: 4, Insightful

    A lefty I know mouses with his left hand. Can't vouch for certain, but it's likely he uses the right set.

  5. Re:Redundant keys by Lumpy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I dont think you understand how POS a POS system is. Most have utterly crappy touchscreens that do not support "gestures" only a single "tap event"

    Almost 90% of all the Point of sale hardware out there are steaming piles of Fecies in quality, but cost 20X the price of regular hardware.

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