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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."

2 of 665 comments (clear)

  1. Re:So why is it used in Windows? by jawtheshark · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Because Ctrl-Alt-Delete is non-interruptible. This way one could be sure it was truly the login screen and not something impersonating the login screen. At least, that's how I remember it. Could be urban legend.

    --
    Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
  2. Re:Makes sense by moronoxyd · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.