Ctrl+Alt+Delete was a mistake – Bill Gates

Microsoft co-founder and the current richest man in the world, Bill Gates has admitted that using Ctrl+Alt+Delete to reboot a computer as a way to log into windows was a mistake.

The three keys was pressed together to get access to windows system in the early versions. Now, it is being used to access the task manager.

During the interview of Bill Gates for the Harvard Campaign by Harvard Campaign co-chair, David Rubenstein, he asked Bill whose idea the Ctrl+Alt+Delete was. He went on to explain how the idea was to reduce the amount of software used by allocating the command to the keyboard.

He however claimed that it was a mistake using the three keys. “It was a mistake,” he said.

He later claimed that it was not Microsoft’s fault though as Microsoft intended to use a single key on the keyboard for login but David Bradley, a designer of IBM PC who invented the Ctrl+Alt+Delete command didn’t want to give Microsoft a single button.

“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,” he said.

David Bradley said of his invention of Ctrl+Alt+Delete at the 20th anniversary of IBM PC: “I may have invented it, but Bill made it famous,” he said.

Microsoft has since left the post of CEO and is now more involved in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This doesn’t mean that he is no more part of Microsoft’s decision makers as being one of the committee members looking for the next Microsoft CEO suggests otherwise.

Posted in Microsoft, Software