Bill Gates Admits Control-Alt-Delete Was A Mistake

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I wonder what's up with everyone admitting their mistakes lately? Not like this is a big deal or anything, just kinda weird.

"It was a mistake," Gates admits to an audience left laughing at his honesty. "We could have had a single button, but the guy who did the IBM keyboard design didn't wanna give us our single button." David Bradley, an engineer who worked on the original IBM PC, invented the combination which was originally designed to reboot a PC. "I may have invented it, but Bill made it famous," Bradley said in an interview previously, leaving Bill Gates looking rather awkward.
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eh... I prefer a series a key to one key to do what CTRL-ALT-DEL does. I mean my keyboard has a sleep button at the corner right next to a calculator button, and the number of times I've accidentally hit sleep is too numerous to count.
 
sfsuphysics said:
eh... I prefer a series a key to one key to do what CTRL-ALT-DEL does. I mean my keyboard has a sleep button at the corner right next to a calculator button, and the number of times I've accidentally hit sleep is too numerous to count.
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This. It would probably be a PITA if you are in an intense game where you need to press many keys and accidentally hit that one.
 
What he said ^^^. I hit the single windows key enough to know what a horrible thing a reboot key would be.
 
I think ctrl-alt-del is a lot better than a single button, especially when you have children or other people around that may accidentally hit that one button and end up locking your account out.

Single button hot-keys are lame. Even the F keys are a nightmare when kids are around.
 
xIronCrossx said:
This. It would probably be a PITA if you are in an intense game where you need to press many keys and accidentally hit that one.
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Yeah, the decision was likely made after seeing what Apple did with their own Reset fail:

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)
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So yeah, Ctrl-Alt-Del was quite a good compromise. Not too hard to do with two hands, but way too hard to do by accident :D
 
The article missed the true historical significance (and irony, actually) of what C-A-D was actually retained for.


In the earlier Windows Kernels (post DOS 6.2 days), and specifically in Windows NT 4.0 , the C-A-D key sequence would actually terminate any memory resident apps, without resetting the machine.



This was kept as a pre-login sequence, to prevent keyloggers, and screen cap trojans and their variants from capturing keypresses at login. (and thus, capturing passwords at the login screen.)...



Ironic that Windows became the most exploited OS anyway.


They could of course, have switched to a single button, such as escape, or other frequently unused key like F6, but they didn't.

Probably because C-A-D was already a stored procedure in much of the stolen code they were using to build their flagship OS.
 
I like CTRL, ALT, Delete, how else am I going to get to the task manager when a troublesome system has hung up the desktop?
 
xIronCrossx said:
This. It would probably be a PITA if you are in an intense game where you need to press many keys and accidentally hit that one.
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LOL ya, you mean like the ?^%&$* "Windows' key. Pried that bitch off my keyboard and now it cries itself to sleep alone in a drawer :mad:
 
Windows: Sticks with CTRL, ALT, Delete which was initially a mistake, drops the start menu which was a feature by design.
 
Outamyhead said:
I like CTRL, ALT, Delete, how else am I going to get to the task manager when a troublesome system has hung up the desktop?
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Volume said:
The real mistake was a Windows key between ctrl and alt.
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no frigging doubt

my Ducky has a dip switch to disable that POS

also...single key reset would be so wrong, my cat manages to mess things up enough without giving her that
 
any keyboards i had which didnt allow me to disable the windows keys usually had the windows key popped off drop of super glue then cap replaced lol
 
Volume said:
The real mistake was a Windows key between ctrl and alt.
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While the location may have been a mistake, the key itself is quite useful. Win+L locks your screen. Win+R brings up the run menu. And of course, hitting the windows key and typing will typically bring up a program quicker than navigating through the start menu for it.
 
CTRL ALT DEL was a great idea.
Its easy to remember and execute, but not so easy a none techy will do it or for anyone to do by accident.
Nothing wrong with it.
 
The perfect example of modern society ... you admit things that were good ideas are mistakes but never acknowledge things that actually were mistakes :D ... I agree with others that the ctrl-alt-del was an elegant solution to a problem and is perfectly fine
 
It's funny. I don't hit the windows key by mistake that much while gaming. But that tilde (~) key? Fuck that key. I popped that sucker off and haven't looked back. Nothing worse than trying to switch to your main gun and the fucking console drops down and all you do is type wwwsssaaaddd and wonder why the game froze for that split second, then boom... you're dead.
 
I wish this was called Alt+Ctrl+Del since that is alphabetical and it also works in that order. The only order it doesn't work is if Del isn't the last pressed key.
 
beowulf7 said:
I wish this was called Alt+Ctrl+Del since that is alphabetical and it also works in that order. The only order it doesn't work is if Del isn't the last pressed key.
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It is in the order of the keys on the keyboard from left to right.
 
If it's that much of a pain then you're too lazy to deserve the privilege of using a computer.
 
Nenu said:
Depends which ctrl and alt you use.
You can do it with one hand using the right side keys.
Although I always use the left side.
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Yes but the appear from left to right in that order. We could switch to... Ctrl, Atl, Atl, Ctrl, Delete if you prefer I guess....
 
Nenu said:
Depends which ctrl and alt you use.
You can do it with one hand using the right side keys.
Although I always use the left side.
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Sure, you could do things wrong. You're more likely to be killed by an octopus or get eyeball cancer that way, but you CAN.
 
LeninGHOLA said:
Sure, you could do things wrong. You're more likely to be killed by an octopus or get eyeball cancer that way, but you CAN.
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lol, I use the left side too.
The early IBM keyboards only had CTRL ALT on the left anyway and the DEL key was to the extreme right of the keyboard, so there was no one handed shuffle :p
 
weebling1 said:
LOL ya, you mean like the ?^%&$* "Windows' key. Pried that bitch off my keyboard and now it cries itself to sleep alone in a drawer :mad:
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LOL! My steelseries only has one windows key off to the right side. I remember my Microsoft Sidewinder X6 actually had a "game" button that would turn those 2 keys off
 
Well thankfully the guy designing the IBM keyboard had the sense to tell Bill "NO".

As far as the windows key, it's actually handy, as long as you aren't gaming. There's so many apps and keyboards with built in switches(or apps) to turn that off while gaming it's a non-issue these days. Windows + L is pretty much a reflex for me these days when walking away from my work laptop for any reason, and the cheesy fingerprint scanner makes it easy enough to log back in, so there's no "casual" screwing around with it while I'm AFK. At home on my gaming machine, it's disabled.
 
Heh, Control + Open Apple key + Reset, the older 3 finger salute.
 
c+a+d was suppose to be a developmental back door and not a feature that went to market.
 
Considering Bill was pushing to have a single button for it on keyboards, I find that to be a dubious claim.
 
jpm100 said:
c+a+d was suppose to be a developmental back door and not a feature that went to market.
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The combo was made by the IBM engineer quoted above to generate an NMI via the keyboard controller chip. I'm sure it served many useful purposes during development.

MS just abused the legacy feature when it came to Windows.
 
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