Bill Gates: ‘Control+Alt+Delete’ should have been one button

Bill Gates has one regret: The two-handed maneuver “Control+Alt+Delete” shortcut that was once required to reboot any Windows computer.

He publicly conceded this Wednesday while on stage at Bloomberg’s Global Business Forum, in New York City, CNNMoney reported.

“If I could make one small edit, I’d make that a single key,” said Gates.

Previously, Gate explained that IBM programmers in the 1980s were partly responsible for the un-user friendly mishap. IBM designed the keyboard layout for PCs at the time, and according to Gates in 2013, “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.”

Even so, the three-key reboot procedure was never meant to be used by the public. Rather, IBM programmers set up this command to create an instant Windows reboot while they developed the software. This was actually logical: It’s difficult to accidentally hit all three keys simultaneously.

This internal feature, however, was unintentionally revealed to the public. Early game and software producers found the command in an IBM reference manual, and its utility spread throughout the programming community — even without the internet.

“They were trying to figure out how to tell somebody to start up one of their programs, and they had the answer. Just put the diskette in, hit Control-Alt-Delete, and by magic your program starts,” explained Gates in 2013.

Microsoft has long abandoned the infamous key combination as a reboot command. Yet it still lives on, giving us all easy access to the Task Manager. Long live the “three finger salute.”

Read more: http://mashable.com/2017/09/21/bill-gates-control-alt-delete-regret/