Regrets Bill Gates? Yes, the combination Ctrl-Alt-Del...

Bill Gates still blames IBM for creating the Ctrl-Alt-Del command, which would have been preferable to a single key. The billionaire admits, he would correct the shot ... if he could go back in time.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates admitted that if he could go back in time he would make a more intuitive command than Ctrl-Alt-Del, requiring both hands, be adopted (to interrupt a process and (Windows).

Gates made this last remark about the historic command of the Windows universe at a forum organized by Bloomberg. He replied to David Rubenstein of Carlyle Group, questioning why this choice of Ctrl-Alt-Del to log on to the Microsoft OS.

It's not my fault, I give my language to IBM

As he had done a few years ago, Gates gave responsibility to the IBM engineers, who were responsible at the time for the Big Blue PC keyboard.

He smiled and said, "The IBM PC hardware keyboard had only one way of generating a certain break, so obviously the people involved would have had to assign another key to make it work. Many machines today offer this function more clearly. "

Rubenstein insisted, asking Gates if he regretted the choice that had been made. Gates dodged the question, but admitted that he would do things differently now.

"Well, I'm not sure we can go back and change things in life without endangering other things. Of course, if I could make a little correction, one-touch operation. "

In 2013, Gates called "error" the requirement to simultaneously enter three keys before logging into Windows. He also reported the blame on the IBM engineers who "did not want to give us our unique button."

Ctrl-Alt-Del to sell Windows NT to the US

The three-key function was created by IBM engineer David Bradley who wanted this command to be the shortcut to restart an IBM PC.

At a roundtable in 2011 with Gates, Bradley said, "I have to share the merit. I may have invented it, but Bill made it famous" by using it for logon on Windows NT.

As Ars Technica pointed out at the time, the drive was initially a BIOS feature. However, Microsoft has made it a software feature in the Enhanced mode of Windows 3.0.

Later, Microsoft hoped to sell Windows NT to the US government. To do this, a "Secure Attention Key" (SAK) was required to which only the operating system could respond. This was to prevent malware from falsifying a login prompt. Ctrl-Alt-Del has become the Windows SAK.

Source: zdnet.fr