Subscribe by EmailCtrl + Alt + Del: The History
April 17, 2007 by Geeks are Sexy | 7 comments
Here’s a short video in which David Bradley, the original inventor of Ctrl + Alt + Del, explains why this particular combination of keys came into existence. He then goes on about how someone we all know very well helped popularize the command.
This keyboard combination was implemented by David Bradley, a designer of the original IBM PC. Bradley originally designed Control-Alt-Escape to trigger a soft reboot, but he found it was too easy to bump the left side of the keyboard and reboot the computer accidentally. He switched the key combination to Control-Alt-Delete, a combination impossible to press with just one hand. (Source: Wikipedia)
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The look on Mr Gates’ face must be the best part of the video :) He obviously can’t take a joke!
uh…i can press this with one hand…
That’s an “oh SNAP” if I ever saw it!
I can hit all three keys with one hand too, and I have small girl hands. :P
For all you “young-uns” out there, the command dates back to when there was only one CTL and one ALT key on the keyboard, both on the left. On these full-size keyboards, you would have needed about a 14-inch handspan plus unusual dexterity in your fingers to accomplish this one-handed.
I bet knowing that makes you feel old.
Very interesting!
Ctrl-alt-del has saved my life many times! Just last night, I was chatting with a friend, and he had his webcam on. I accidently enlarged the cam to full-screen view! There were no icons, no taskbar – nothing but a huge cam view! Ooops! I had to hit ctrl-alt-del to access the task manager and close the cam. Never again will I enlarge the cam view to full-screen!
omg that was hilarious!! poor bill! he was shocked