who invented CTRL-ALT-DELETE?

Answer 1

David Bradley

Answer 2

Here you go (from Wikipedia),

This keyboard combination was designed by David Bradley, a designer of the original IBM PC. Bradley originally designed Control-Alt-Escape to trigger a soft reboot, but he found it was too easy to bump the left side of the keyboard and reboot the computer accidentally. He switched the key combination to Control-Alt-Delete, a combination impossible to press with just one hand (this is not true of later keyboards, such as the 102-key PC/AT keyboard or the Maltron keyboard). More advanced operating systems use its status as a "reserved" combination for various purposes, but often retain the ability to trigger a soft reboot in certain configurations or circumstances. David Bradley is also known for his good-natured jab at Bill Gates, at that time the CEO of Microsoft, and also the creator of many of Microsoft's programs: "I may have invented Control-Alt-Delete, but Bill [Gates] made it famous", alluding to the three keystrokes required to reboot a crashed operating system or close crashed programs in most Microsoft operating systems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control-Alt-Delete

Answer 3

David Bradley of IBM (who just recently retired from the company). He felt that there needed to be an interrupt sequence of the PC so invented C+A+D. Made Gates and company mad, as they insisted their software would never crash and did not need such a sequence. So Gates turned C+A+D into the log in combination for Windows NT/2000 instead.

Answer 4

Bill Gates, Microsoft and company, in the old days of MS-DOS, before Windows 3.1, as another person answered. This is a leftover from back in the days when Microsoft's answer to everything MacIntosh was "well....our system is faster, cheaper, and it is what your *boss* tells you to use at work, so you WILL use our stuff and LIKE IT, BWAHAHAHAHA!!!"

In other words, it is a leftover from the bad-old C/PM days when computing wasn't personal at all and was supposed to be all about sucking up to big business, and screening people out by making computers deliberately *hard* to use....

And hell, it *was* a great way for Microsoft to justify getting the *monopoly* it did, wasn't it? Heil Gates! and all that. >:P

Whatever. Soon it will all be a moot point anyway as we will find the replacement for the "personal computer" way faster than what Microsoft can adapt to it.

Answer 5

Bill gates & crew before Windows 3.1 in the 80's / 90's

Answer 6

someone who watched too much Mr. Spock on Star Trek