Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The History of Ctrl + Alt + Delete

m.mentalfloss.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–47 of 47 posts

Re: The History of Ctrl + Alt + Delete

#41

Post by Zarel »

Udo wrote: post #20
D9u wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CTRL+ALT+DEL on old Windows used to open the real task manager Really? Define "old Windows?" I have vague memories of the "three finger salute" invoking a reboot on Windows 3.1, as well as MS-DOS. (early 1990's)

It wasn't supposed to be an insult. My last Windows experience was XP and the TFS invoked the Task Manager on that OS. I never used 3.1, so I don't know. But the GP seemed to suggest that the Task Manager shortcut has changed in newer versions.

Windows 95, 98, and Me used Ctrl+Alt+Del for Task Manager.

Windows NT, 2000, XP, Vista, 7, etc use Ctrl+Shift+Esc for Task Manager, while Ctrl+Alt+Del was reserved for the lockscreen.

What was confusing, though, was that Windows XP (and ONLY Windows XP, not 2000 or Vista) in default settings would use Ctrl+Alt+Del for Task Manager, although in domain mode Ctrl+Alt+Del would still open the lockscreen.

Re: The History of Ctrl + Alt + Delete

#42

Post by ksk »

speeder wrote: post #32
ksk wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OS issues such as?

Like allowing a poorly coded game hijack your screen and having no way to fix it but using control alt del and hitting keys hoping it will close the offending program... Or crashes related to Adobe products, or Apple products... I know it is mainly not windows fault, but there are some OSes that are more resilient to stupid programs.

Do you happen to remember what game it was? I haven't seen a case in over a decade where pure user-mode code caused a denial of service type attack on the OS. There is a possibility that kernel-mode DRM crap installed by the game caused problems in your case. When you're in kernel-mode though, all bets are off and no OS can save you.

Also I don't understand what you mean by resilient to stupid programs? A general purpose OS should terminate badly written programs the instant it runs into a crashing-bug.

Re: The History of Ctrl + Alt + Delete

#43

Post by marshray »

WalterBright wrote: post #33

> And yet, few of these consumers were aware of Bradley’s shortcut quietly lingering in their machines. It wasn’t until the early 1990s, when Microsoft’s Windows took off, that the shortcut came to prominence. What? I've programmed the PC since 1982 or so. Everyone knew about C-A-D.

Agree, this article is factually incorrect. Everyone who used DOS experienced crashes from time to time and quickly learned about Ctrl-Alt-Del. This was not a Windows thing.

It was sent by the keyboard controller of the PC/AT. http://zet.aluzina.org/images/d/d4/8042.pdf "Bit 0 of the keyboard is connected to System Reset..." But I think it may have been a pure BIOS thing in the PC/jr/XT.

It was the only way to get a hardware non-maskable interrupt from the user and thus became the basis for the "secure attention key" sequence you had to hit before you type your password on Windows NT. AIUI, this was an Orange Book security requirement.

Re: The History of Ctrl + Alt + Delete

#44

Post by marshray »

patmcguire wrote: post #18
ScottBurson wrote: post #13

I've always wondered whether the creator of Ctrl-Alt-Del was aware that the MIT Lisp Machines were rebooted with Ctrl-Meta-Ctrl-Meta-Rubout, or if this is just a case of convergent reinvention. Does anyone know?

I can't verify, because I can't find old WordPerfect docs, but I remember hearing that CTRL + ALT + DEL was save for WordPerfect. The hint was that MS chose that as a monopoly-extending tactic. Might be thinking of ALT + F4, though, and this might be total nonsense.

I vaguely recall something involving F7 leading you to the save function on WordPerfect. Like it would ask you if you wanted to save, and if you mistakenly answered 'no' all your unsaved work was lost.

Re: The History of Ctrl + Alt + Delete

#45

Post by dllthomas »

laumars wrote: post #36
stinos wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know, I've been using it for more than 2 decades :P And I always had the feeling that the amount of crashes due to actual OS bugs is way lower than what the common belief seems to be. Way over 90% of problems I witnessed myself was duewas dues to faulty software, drivers or hardware. And as you say it just got better with most releases which is (just guessing) partly due to less OS bugs and partly due to the OS tak…

Faulty 3rd party software should never be allowed to cause kernel panics (aka BSODs)

That is possibly overstating the case. Depending on demands on performance and/or control it might make sense to sacrifice some stability... but it does count against the stability of the system.

Re: The History of Ctrl + Alt + Delete

#47

Post by ScottBurson »

_ap wrote: post #37
ScottBurson wrote: post #13

I've always wondered whether the creator of Ctrl-Alt-Del was aware that the MIT Lisp Machines were rebooted with Ctrl-Meta-Ctrl-Meta-Rubout, or if this is just a case of convergent reinvention. Does anyone know?

I can't say for sure, but the ending quote from the article “I have to share the credit,” Bradley joked. “I may have invented it, but I think Bill made it famous.” seems to support the theory that he reinvented it independently. I'd be interested to know who at MIT picked the key combination Ctrl-Meta-Ctrl-Meta-Rubout for the Lisp Machines.

It was almost certainly Richard Greenblatt, who built the CONS prototype (there was only one built) and then the first CADRs.
Post reply on HN