Ctrl+Alt+Delete, which is a keyboard shortcut used to restart the system or run the task manager in Windows, exists in our lives as a key combination performed by pressing the Delete key while pressing the Control and Alt keys at the same time.
Since it is a key combination that requires the use of both hands, it can be difficult to use. The story of this command, which is known as the most effective medicine for confused computers, but can sometimes annoy the user, goes back to ancient times.
Personal computers, which are indispensable parts of our lives, have been used since the early 1980s.
The emergence of the command was signed by the employees of the IBM company, which had a great weight in computer technology at that time. Researchers working on the company’s personal computer project had to reboot the entire system when they encountered a programming problem.
Memory tests performed during user reboot of the system were time consuming.
IBM engineer David Bradley then created a shortcut command that allows the system to reboot without memory tests.
Initially, the Control+Alt+Escape keys were chosen for this purpose.
Since these keys can be pressed with one hand at the same time, the Delete key was preferred instead of Escape in order to prevent accidental reboots and data loss. This command, which engineers developed for themselves in the first place and chose keys that are far from each other in order not to cause errors, was later used in the operating system developed by Microsoft.
Bill Gates, one of the founders of Microsoft, made a sincere confession on this issue years later.
Answering the question posed to him at a panel at Bloomberg Global Business Forum, Bill Gates said that this command can be done with a single click; However, he said that the person who designed the IBM keyboard at that time did not want to give them a single key, and therefore they were programming at a low level, which was a mistake. Bill Gates “If it were up to me, this function would be a single button.” He stated that he did not like the Ctrl+Alt+Delete shortcut.
Sources: TUBITAK, Digital Age
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