'CtrlAltDelete' Inventor Restarts Career

[mouse7]

'CtrlAltDelete' Inventor Restarts Career

Wed Jan 28, 3:24 PM ET

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. - David Bradley spent five minutes writing the computer code that has bailed out the world's PC users for decades.

The result was one of the most well-known key combinations around: CtrlAltDelete. It forces obstinate computers to restart when they will no longer follow other commands.

Bradley, 55, is getting a new start of his own. He's retiring Friday after 28 1/2 years with IBM.

Bradley joined the company in June 1975 as an engineer in Boca Raton, Fla. By 1980, he was one of 12 working to create the IBM PC. He now works at IBM's facility in Research Triangle Park.

The engineers knew they had to design a simple way to restart the computer should it fail. Bradley wrote the code to make it work.

"I didn't know it was going to be a cultural icon," Bradley said. "I did a lot of other things than CtrlAltDelete, but I'm famous for that one...."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20040128/ap_on_hi_te/ctrlaltdelete_man

The "Dean reboot" jokes are just writing themselves for late night comedy writers from coast-to-coast right now.

[TacticalPeek]

1. Three finger salute to Bradley.

:argh:

[GAspnes]

2. So who invented 'the big red reset switch'?

?

[DavidMS]

3. I don't know

but here is the entry in the Jargon File

http://info.astrian.net/jargon/terms/b.html#Big_Red_Switch