geekhack
geekhack Community => Off Topic => Topic started by: SpAmRaY on Thu, 26 September 2013, 15:04:33
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What do you guys think?
http://www.slashgear.com/ctrlaltdel-was-a-mistake-says-bill-gates-26299248/
http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/26/4772680/bill-gates-admits-ctrl-alt-del-was-a-mistake
It's a shortcut all Windows users know. A frozen program? Slow performance? The first move is, of course, holding down those three keys -- Control-Alt-Delete. It's a three-finger move to get to the task manager or get to a log-in screen, and Microsoft founder Bill Gates now admits the rather clunky command was a mistake.
When asked who came up with the shortcut during an interview at Harvard University this week, Gates said "it was a mistake."
"We could have had a single button, but the guy who did the IBM keyboard design didn't want to give us our single button," Gates said. "We programmed at a low level. ... It was a mistake." The part in the interview was first spotted by Geekwire.
That IBM PC engineer was David Bradley. Bradley, who designed the computer in 1980, said in an older interview that "it was originally intended to be what we would now call an Easter Egg, just something we were just using in development -- it wouldn't be available elsewhere."
That certainly wasn't the case. Introduced in 1981, the command still lives on in Windows, including Microsoft's current Windows 8 operating system.
According to a 2010 article in the Indianapolis Star, the original idea was to create a way to restart the computer. He chose those keys because he didn't want people to mistakenly hit the keys and on that original IBM keyboard the Delete key was on the other side and, thus, required two hands.
Bradley said he didn't think it would become a "cultural icon," and then taking a shot at Gates and Windows' all-too-well-known issues, he said, "I might have invented it, but I think Bill made it famous."
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Interesting!
It is weird to have to press all three keys oddly spaced apart.
It makes sense for the way it is used to not accidentally reset the computer or close a program.
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Spam you spelt "Store" wrong.
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Spam you spelt "Store" wrong.
Dang it Tym.....I just spend like 2 minutes trying to figure that out hahaha
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:p
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You don't need two hands :)
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He might think it was a mistake, but I can't imagine using any version of Windows without having to use Ctrl+Alt+Delete. It just wouldn't be right...
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Modern computers don't have a reset button.
At least Ctrl-Alt-Del gives you an option of forcing a restart without just yanking the power cord.
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He might think it was a mistake, but I can't imagine using any version of Windows without having to use Ctrl+Alt+Delete. It just wouldn't be right...
I agree. Ctrl+Alt+Delete has many uses and it's only a key-combination away. Maybe he's just referring to filthy casuals. (http://i.imgur.com/zOfJ3n5.png)
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I can press Ctrl+Alt+Delete with one finger (without using macros!) on my ErgoDox...
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so was vista
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so was windows
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Modern computers don't have a reset button.
At least Ctrl-Alt-Del gives you an option of forcing a restart without just yanking the power cord.
Holding the (physical) power button forces shutdown. Good enough?
However, in win95 I believe you could double tap and HOLD ctr alt del to force a restart though. I remember doing that a lot.... I used to try it on modern windows OSs but soon realized it doesn't have the same effect.
Cute article, funny it was supposed to be a dev tool.
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Interesting!
It is weird to have to press all three keys oddly spaced apart.
It makes sense for the way it is used to not accidentally reset the computer or close a program.
They are all on the same row of the keyboard, not that odd. I like how ctrl+shift+escape is the transpose.
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Modern computers don't have a reset button.
At least Ctrl-Alt-Del gives you an option of forcing a restart without just yanking the power cord.
Holding the (physical) power button forces shutdown. Good enough?
Not quite, holding the power button still means physically powering the machine down. The old reset button didn't do that (I think) - just forced an immediate reboot.