'Ctrl-Alt-Delete' Inventor Restarts Career
 

Technology - AP

'CtrlAltDelete' Inventor Restarts Career
Wed Jan 28, 3:23 PM ET Add Technology - AP to My Yahoo!


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."


His fame depends on others failures.


At a 20-year celebration for the IBM PC, Bradley was on a panel with Microsoft founder Bill Gates (news - web sites) and other tech icons. The discussion turned to the keys.


"I may have invented it, but Bill made it famous," Bradley said.


Gates didn't laugh. The key combination also is used when software, such as Microsoft's Windows operating system, fails.


Bradley, whose name was once mentioned as a clue in the final round of the TV game show "Jeopardy," will continue teaching at N.C. State University after retirement.


His office is filled with memories of his time at IBM and the keys that brought him fame in the tech world. He says he has almost every cartoon that featured CtrlAltDelete. There are video clips of the "Jeopardy" show and the panel with Gates.


"After having been the answer on final 'Jeopardy,' if I can be a clue in 'The New York Times' Sunday crossword puzzle, I will have met all my life's goals," Bradley said.



http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...laltdelete_man

We will sadly miss you !! :(

LOL his life goal is to be a clue on the new york times sunday crossword puzzle and an answer on jeopardy.

what happened to the guy who created the first smiley face emoticon? :)

haha yep it's definately true that Bill Gates made it famous :D

LOL yah i kind of thought that joke inside a joke was rather funny myself.

Bill Gates = OWNED!
Nice.

rock on RTP! used to live in Raleigh and there are some really motivated people in that area.

with the amount of times you need to alt+ctrl+del with MS products, makes ya think why its so famous.

What does CtrlAltDelete do?

It maes your computer run faster of course. But you have to do it really fast about 5 or 6 times . :Graucho

I read somewhere that if I open Microsoft Word and type in "Smokey The Bear" the tool tip paperclip pops up and renames my document to blog.something or other.

I read this story in hustler like 15 years ago about his guy who jerked off every night and saved it in jars in the freezer, for a whole year, and then he poured it all into the bathtub so it was full of old sperm, then he hopped in with some chick and they drank it while fucking each other. :repuke

Well, at least he wasn't in the food service industry.