Posted on 09/21/2017 1:39:29 PM PDT by dayglored
Gives two-fingered salute to IBM designers for forcing us to use three-fingered salute
Bill Gates has said that if he had his time again, he would not have chosen CTRL-ALT-DEL as the keypress to interrupt a PC's operations.
Speaking at the Bloomberg Global Business Forum, as recorded from about the 8:30 mark in this video, Gates looked a touch bemused when Carlyle Group co-founder and CEO David Rubenstein asked about the infamous three-finger salute.
He nonetheless answered the question directly, and in a very Bill Gates way, saying: "The IBM hardware PC keyboard only had one way it could get a guaranteed interrupt generated. So clearly the people involved, they should have put another key on in order to make that work."
Gates also observed that "a lot of machines nowadays do have that as a more obvious function." Rubenstein pressed, asking whether Gates regrets having chosen CTRL-ALT-DEL.
"I am not sure you can go back and change the small things in your life without putting the other things at risk," Gates responded, before adding: "Sure, if I could make one small edit I would make that a single key operation."
Gates also used his time on the panel discussion to take a small swipe at "Silicon Valley billionaires who want to live forever", saying that his current focus is on problems such as the fact an African child is 100 times more likely to die of a preventable disease than an American child. He also opined that the "digital revolution" has many years to run, with effects aplenty to be felt across all industries. ®
The three-finger-salute was the work of IBM engineer David Bradley, who programmed the original IBM PC BIOS to forcibly trigger a system reboot when the keys were pressed – and there wasn't much Microsoft could do about it.
In 2001, at a party marking the 20th birthday of the IBM PC, Bradley, while sitting next to Gates, quipped to his audience: "I have to share the credit [for ctrl-alt-del]. I may have invented it, but I think Bill made it famous.”
The Redmond billionaire was not amused.
The biggest mistake was continuing with the QWERTY keyboard. It we had gone to the Dvorak keyboard, productivitiy would have greatly improved.
AKA OS/2
MANY people would like to give Microsoft “the one-finger salute”!!!!
I’d like to CTRL-ALT-DEL Bill Gates’ ignorant social ideas.
There was once a RESET key! It was a reboot. Easy to hit accidentally. The problem isn’t whether it’s one key or a combination - it’s that the EFFECT of hitting a key is not make clear.
OTOH (so to speak), a single-key REBOOT key would be all too easy to press accidentally.
Your child or cat could do it at an inconvenient time...
= = =
Easier than “wiping”.
We need to CTRL-ALT-DEL liberalism.
Wiping, like with a cloth??
Yeah! And they should add a new key for each CAPITAL letter. I get so fatigued reaching over to push th a Caps Lock key. Aargh!!
= = =
Just install a second keyboard, and press cap-lock on that one.
Play them like an organist with multiple keyboards.
Easy!
Back when Ctrl-Alt-Del was a real, no kidding, reboot the GD thing NOW ... it was really good for it to be a multiple key, highly unlikely combination that took both hands. It was (and is) essentially impossible to do it accidentally.
Gates can say what he wants, I side with the anonymous IBM engineer: Good Choice.
“I’d like to CTRL-ALT-DEL Bill Gates’ ignorant social ideas.”
I was at a Christian fundraising event awhile ago. They do a lot of good work in third-world countries. They were talking about the malaria medicine they use to help people - over a million people a year die from it, mostly kids. (Whispered to my wife -”they should lobby to bring back DDT.”) X amount of dollars buys 100 nettings for beds. (”I wonder how many gallons of DDT that would buy?”)
Hardly anonymous: David Bradley
One day the Pointy-haired Boss in Dilbert hired a monkey to do coding.
Dilbert and the rest complained that the monkey had an unfair advantage; he could use his tail.
Yeah said the boss, you ought to see him do Ctl-Alt-Del!
Probably a relative of the "reporter".
A CTRL-C used to interrupt a PC's "operation" without resetting it.
Now that I think about it, didn't Gates say he'd do the Win NT logon screen differently, rather than requiring "CTRL-ALT-DEL"?
Perhaps the reporter is confused?
I thought the un-plug to reboot was Gates idea
OK. Thanks.
And that was probably in the article ...
I side with David Bradley. Ctrl-Alt-Del was a good choice.
At some point, around 2K, it changed from a system reboot to a admin control and log in.
A single key system reboot would not be a good idea IMO.
The Apple ll’s had a reset key right on top of the keyboard. Caused a lot of trouble. Then a 3rd party came out with a shift key mod to make it less prone to accidentally hitting it. It was one a few things Gates got right to begin with.
How about we control alt delete Bill Gates.
Correct. That made sense. But the newer implementation launches the task manger or log in screen. Not a reboot.
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