Gates calls Ctrl+Alt+Del command a mistake

In hindsight, the standard PC keyboard is covered in absurd anachronisms. Never-used commands get to own their own keys, while frequently-used actions can require complicated chords. I mean, I can&#x27;t even tell what Scroll Lock does, and Caps Lock is the source of constant rage... but if I want to switch to the previous tab in any tabbed interface? Why that&#x27;s just CTRL+SHIFT+TAB. How simple!<p>Leaving soft-reboot on a complicated mess like CTRL+ALT+DELETE makes perfect sense. Using that combo to <i>log on</i> or access a perfectly useful menu is hopelessly moronic.

Miss the three fingered salute? Then enjoy the linux kernel&#x27;s Mystic SysRq Key Combo of l33tness!<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_SysRq_key" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Magic_SysRq_key</a>

I don&#x27;t know... there&#x27;s something about Ctrl+Alt+Del that was so uniquely satisfying -- maybe because it required two hands? Because it was so arcane and unintuitive? And the awesome power to restart your computer via simple key presses, no matter how locked-up it was?<p>It&#x27;s bizarre to say, but I almost miss having something like it on my Mac. A single, obvious power button just isn&#x27;t as much &quot;fun&quot;.

On a tangentially related note, it took me a while to make the connection that HALT on x86 is 0xF4 -&gt; Alt+F4 = close in Windows.

don&#x27;t forget, it is actually a Secure Attention Key (SAK) - really awesome - I&#x27;ll miss it when it&#x27;s gone for good.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_attention_key" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Secure_attention_key</a>

Full Interview is here <a href="http://youtu.be/cBHJ-8Bch4E" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;cBHJ-8Bch4E</a> and he talks about ctrl + alt + delete being mistake at around 16:33.

So a funny story which relates. The actual &quot;feature&quot; of resetting the system (sending it the appropriate non-maskable interrupt) was handled in early PC&#x27;s by the keyboard controller, which was a chip on the motherboard. I was at a company and we were building our own &quot;lights out&quot; server system, no keyboard, so the hardware engineer deleted the keyboard controller from the schematic. The issue was that the BIOS we got from AWARD couldn&#x27;t deal with the fact that there was no controller, it would enable the interrupt anyway and I guess the pin was simply not connected on the interrupt controller so we&#x27;d get random interrupts. Back and forth half in English and half in Chinese to get the BIOS fixed, every time an update came it would be broken again. It became such an issue that the HW engineer built a small board that had the controller on it that could be &#x27;blue wired&#x27; into the circuit so that we could continue to debug&#x2F;build stuff while the BIOS guys were in a &#x27;broken&#x27; cycle. In later versions we switched to AMI and had a much better time of it but sheesh it was a pain.

What&#x27;s the alternative? I&#x27;d like some sequence of keystrokes that goes directly to the OS and can&#x27;t be intercepted by other programs. I want to know that the dialog I&#x27;m typing my password into is really the OS.

<i>&quot;[...] Ctrl+Alt+Del because it was impossible to press with just one hand.&quot;</i><p>At first I thought, <i>&quot;Well, not impossible, really...&quot;</i>, because you can &quot;play the chord&quot; with your right hand:<p>Pointer (Ctrl) + Thumb (Alt) + Middle (Delete)<p>But...<p>The older keyboards [1] only had a single &quot;Ctrl&quot; key and a single &quot;Alt&quot; key. They were located on the left side of the keyboard, while the single &quot;Del&quot; key was located on the right side.<p>So, with that configuration, it actually was impossible to perform the combination with a single hand.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=%22IBM+5150+Keyboard%22&amp;tbm=isch" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.google.com&#x2F;search?q=%22IBM+5150+Keyboard%22&amp;tbm=...</a>

Which fingers do you use? For me it&#x27;s left index and ring and right middle.

If it was a single key I would have to have one of those plastic shields installed on top of it like you see in the cockpit of jet fighters. Gotta flip it up and then push it lol.

Which use of ctrl-alt-del exactly does he consider a mistake? I can&#x27;t believe that anybody could consider allowing the computer to be rebooted with a single accidental keypress a good idea.

These days I much prefer CTRL+SHIFT+ESC.

Hindsight is 20&#x2F;20 Bill :)

I think the good thing about making it three buttons is that you have to learn something kind of complex and arcane to gain a bit of power over the machine. It tells you something about the machine in order to interrupt it this way.