"more a screen of profound injury"
September 14, 2014 7:06 PM Subscribe
A week of Ctrl-Alt-Del posts on Raymond Chen's blog The Old New Thing begins with a simple blog post: Who wrote the text for the Ctrl+Alt+Del dialog in Windows 3.1?. What followed was a mixture of confused tech journalism and Chen's patient Windows archaeology.
Chen's initial post was widely misreported; in a followup, Steve Ballmer did not write the text for the blue screen of death, Chen notes that Windows 3.1 actually died to a black screen:
Finally, What did Windows 3.1 do when you hit Ctrl+Alt+Del? closes the circle back to Windows 3.1, delving deep into the mechanics of Windows internals: "now things got messy."
Chen's initial post was widely misreported; in a followup, Steve Ballmer did not write the text for the blue screen of death, Chen notes that Windows 3.1 actually died to a black screen:
The Ctrl+Alt+Del dialog was not the blue screen of death. I mean, it had a Cancel option, for goodness's sake. What message of death comes with a Cancel option?In I wrote the original blue screen of death, sort of, Chen continues into Windows 95's blue-screen errors:
When a device driver crashed, Windows 95 tried its best to limp along despite a catastrophic failure in a kernel-mode component. It wasn't a blue screen of death so much as a blue screen of lameness. Note the optimistic message "It may be possible to continue normally." Everybody forgets that after Windows 95 showed you a blue screen error, it tried its best to ignore the error and keep running anyway.In A lie repeated often enough becomes the truth Chen notes that "'blue screen of death' was generally attributed to the blue screen fatal error message of Windows NT."
Finally, What did Windows 3.1 do when you hit Ctrl+Alt+Del? closes the circle back to Windows 3.1, delving deep into the mechanics of Windows internals: "now things got messy."
You mean a liberal arts education? It was deemed not profitable and deprecated in favor of technology trade schools.
posted by ardgedee at 7:44 PM on September 14, 2014 [18 favorites]
posted by ardgedee at 7:44 PM on September 14, 2014 [18 favorites]
Stories like these remind me that although I'm old enough to remember Windows 3.1, I don't actually remember much about it. This was a fun trip down memory discovery lane.
posted by Night_owl at 7:57 PM on September 14, 2014
posted by Night_owl at 7:57 PM on September 14, 2014
I read Raymond Chen's blog every day. He's a great writer and often writes these fascinating stories about the early days of Windows.
I think he's being a little disingenuous about the definition "of death". I definitely remember calling the Windows 95 version a BSoD at the time, at least. Sure it has a continue option, but if the screen was triggered, it almost always meant something went very wrong and the blue screen would keep appearing.
posted by zixyer at 7:59 PM on September 14, 2014
I think he's being a little disingenuous about the definition "of death". I definitely remember calling the Windows 95 version a BSoD at the time, at least. Sure it has a continue option, but if the screen was triggered, it almost always meant something went very wrong and the blue screen would keep appearing.
posted by zixyer at 7:59 PM on September 14, 2014
I was lucky enough to interact with Raymond a couple of times while I was working at Microsoft in the early/mid 90's.
Back in the mid 90's he stood out among programmers: instead of the sloppy t-shirt/jeans, he wore a classy suit.
I saw him at a debugger once... He was interacting with the computer at a typing speed of about 90 words per minute - but debugging.
He was the first programmer I encountered that was 'god-like' (ie: more than competent, more than great, but mind-bogglingly brilliant). He earned the title 'rock-star' before I had heard of such a word to describe developers.
He was also a funny and good writer; he had an internal blog at Microsoft that kept track of the re-orgs within the company (along with a constantly updating indicator: '[X] days since last reorg'.
posted by el io at 8:05 PM on September 14, 2014 [10 favorites]
Back in the mid 90's he stood out among programmers: instead of the sloppy t-shirt/jeans, he wore a classy suit.
I saw him at a debugger once... He was interacting with the computer at a typing speed of about 90 words per minute - but debugging.
He was the first programmer I encountered that was 'god-like' (ie: more than competent, more than great, but mind-bogglingly brilliant). He earned the title 'rock-star' before I had heard of such a word to describe developers.
He was also a funny and good writer; he had an internal blog at Microsoft that kept track of the re-orgs within the company (along with a constantly updating indicator: '[X] days since last reorg'.
posted by el io at 8:05 PM on September 14, 2014 [10 favorites]
What message of death comes with a Cancel option?
I think it still counts as a message of death if the cancel button results in continued death the vast majority of the time.
posted by zachlipton at 8:29 PM on September 14, 2014 [2 favorites]
I think it still counts as a message of death if the cancel button results in continued death the vast majority of the time.
posted by zachlipton at 8:29 PM on September 14, 2014 [2 favorites]
This debacle confirms my opinion of tech "journalists", all illiterate idiots.
posted by coust at 8:43 PM on September 14, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by coust at 8:43 PM on September 14, 2014 [2 favorites]
I definitely remember calling the Windows 95 version a BSoD at the time, at least.
Me too, but NT was actually a couple years older, I have no trouble believing "BSoD" in the consumer-grade Windows world was just cross-pollinated.
posted by Western Infidels at 9:25 PM on September 14, 2014
Me too, but NT was actually a couple years older, I have no trouble believing "BSoD" in the consumer-grade Windows world was just cross-pollinated.
posted by Western Infidels at 9:25 PM on September 14, 2014
Who wrote the famous line: "It's now safe to turn off your computer."?
posted by Obscure Reference at 1:03 AM on September 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Obscure Reference at 1:03 AM on September 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
Since people seem to be confusing these two things: Windows 3.1 had a black screen of death and a blue screen of Ctrl-Alt-Del (written by Steve Ballmer), while Windows 95 had a blue screen of death (written by Raymond Chen) and a friendly dialog box of Ctrl-Alt-Del.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 1:44 AM on September 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 1:44 AM on September 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
Well, the last line of the 3.1 Blue Screen of Ctrl-Alt-Del is almost the same as the last line of the Windows 95 Blue Screen, so Ballmer indirectly wrote some of that dialog.
(Still doesn't excuse the lazy journalism, though)
posted by ymgve at 5:35 AM on September 15, 2014
(Still doesn't excuse the lazy journalism, though)
posted by ymgve at 5:35 AM on September 15, 2014
I am much less interested in who wrote what text on various obsolete operating systems than I am in who decided that Ctrl-Alt-Del was a reasonable thing to ask users to do. Not that I'm interested enough to try looking it up ...
posted by Kirth Gerson at 6:15 AM on September 15, 2014
posted by Kirth Gerson at 6:15 AM on September 15, 2014
Who wrote the famous line: "It's now safe to turn off your computer."?
I have no idea, but I can tell you that my discovery in mid-1997 that the shutdown message for Windows 9x machines is stored as a .sys file, renamed from a .bmp, was the zenith of my "subtly fucking with authority figures" period. Teachers, parents, and friends alike were gaslighted (gaslit?) over a period of months, as the grammar and spelling of that fateful orange message became less and less coherent, and the text slid slooowly away from vertical-and-horizontal-center.
The best reaction was from the guy who thought there was some sort of text-processing happening to create that message on the fly every time, and that there was some sort of major hardware defect because he had just been informed, "It am now safe to turn off your compoter."
posted by Mayor West at 6:27 AM on September 15, 2014 [21 favorites]
I have no idea, but I can tell you that my discovery in mid-1997 that the shutdown message for Windows 9x machines is stored as a .sys file, renamed from a .bmp, was the zenith of my "subtly fucking with authority figures" period. Teachers, parents, and friends alike were gaslighted (gaslit?) over a period of months, as the grammar and spelling of that fateful orange message became less and less coherent, and the text slid slooowly away from vertical-and-horizontal-center.
The best reaction was from the guy who thought there was some sort of text-processing happening to create that message on the fly every time, and that there was some sort of major hardware defect because he had just been informed, "It am now safe to turn off your compoter."
posted by Mayor West at 6:27 AM on September 15, 2014 [21 favorites]
I liked CTRL+ALT+DEL much more than the OSX three finger salute of CMD+ALT+ESC.
My favorite Raymond story is: once I went to his office to meet people to go somewhere else. While waiting, he was typing away at a cmd prompt. I noticed that a dialog kept appearing in the center of his screen and disappearing almost immediately. He seemed not to notice. Finally I asked what was up with that?
Turns out it was Outlook complaining that an external program had modified its whatever data file. Apparently he wanted an inbox rule that couldn't be built with Outlook's UI (at the time), so he wrote a program that munged the data files and did what he wanted anyway. But Outlook noticed and popped a dialog to complain about it. So he had another program that watched for that dialog and dismissed it as soon as it appeared.
posted by jeffamaphone at 9:44 AM on September 15, 2014 [3 favorites]
My favorite Raymond story is: once I went to his office to meet people to go somewhere else. While waiting, he was typing away at a cmd prompt. I noticed that a dialog kept appearing in the center of his screen and disappearing almost immediately. He seemed not to notice. Finally I asked what was up with that?
Turns out it was Outlook complaining that an external program had modified its whatever data file. Apparently he wanted an inbox rule that couldn't be built with Outlook's UI (at the time), so he wrote a program that munged the data files and did what he wanted anyway. But Outlook noticed and popped a dialog to complain about it. So he had another program that watched for that dialog and dismissed it as soon as it appeared.
posted by jeffamaphone at 9:44 AM on September 15, 2014 [3 favorites]
> who decided that Ctrl-Alt-Del was a reasonable thing to ask users to do
David J. Bradley for the original soft reboot. For use as a Secure Attention Key, Bill Gates + IBM? "Gates stated he would have preferred a single button to trigger the same actions, but could not get IBM to add the extra button into the keyboard layout."
posted by morganw at 10:01 AM on September 15, 2014 [2 favorites]
David J. Bradley for the original soft reboot. For use as a Secure Attention Key, Bill Gates + IBM? "Gates stated he would have preferred a single button to trigger the same actions, but could not get IBM to add the extra button into the keyboard layout."
posted by morganw at 10:01 AM on September 15, 2014 [2 favorites]
This was before Ctrl+Alt+Del was used secure attention key.
I believe the thinking was, people were already using Ctrl+Alt+Del to reboot their computer when it locked up anyway, so the Windows 3.0 enhanced mode attempted to intercept Ctrl+Alt+Del because it might be possible to resolve a lockup by closing the program that has crashed.
posted by zixyer at 10:13 AM on September 15, 2014 [2 favorites]
I believe the thinking was, people were already using Ctrl+Alt+Del to reboot their computer when it locked up anyway, so the Windows 3.0 enhanced mode attempted to intercept Ctrl+Alt+Del because it might be possible to resolve a lockup by closing the program that has crashed.
posted by zixyer at 10:13 AM on September 15, 2014 [2 favorites]
I have no idea, but I can tell you that my discovery in mid-1997 that the shutdown message for Windows 9x machines is stored as a .sys file, renamed from a .bmp ...
I remember that! It took us weeks, at the crappy temp call centre job I did briefly after college, to notice that the geeky kid next to me's computer said, "It is not safe to eat your computer". Soon after that, we all had variant messages ...
posted by iotic at 10:18 AM on September 15, 2014
I remember that! It took us weeks, at the crappy temp call centre job I did briefly after college, to notice that the geeky kid next to me's computer said, "It is not safe to eat your computer". Soon after that, we all had variant messages ...
posted by iotic at 10:18 AM on September 15, 2014
morganw: > who decided that Ctrl-Alt-Del was a reasonable thing to ask users to doThank FSM, as a single key that doesn't exist on some keyboards, and triggers a shutdown, sounds like the worst of all worlds.
David J. Bradley for the original soft reboot. For use as a Secure Attention Key, Bill Gates + IBM? "Gates stated he would have preferred a single button to trigger the same actions, but could not get IBM to add the extra button into the keyboard layout."
posted by IAmBroom at 10:59 AM on September 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
Yeah, one of the reasons Ctrl+Alt+Del was chosen is that it's impossible to invoke by accident. You need to use two hands.
If it was a single key, they would have to address the problem of accidentally pressing it. Probably by requiring a double tap or holding it down for a few seconds before it would work.
posted by zixyer at 11:04 AM on September 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
If it was a single key, they would have to address the problem of accidentally pressing it. Probably by requiring a double tap or holding it down for a few seconds before it would work.
posted by zixyer at 11:04 AM on September 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
Chen also gives another clue as to why it was Ctrl+Alt+Del, or rather, why it was not some of the other keys: "Since this code ran in the kernel, it didn't have access to keyboard layout information. It doesn't know that if you are using the Chinese-Bopomofo keyboard layout, then the way to type 'OK' is to press C, followed by L, followed by 3. Not that it would help, because there is no IME in the kernel anyway. As much as possible, the responses were mapped to language-independent keys like Enter and ESC."
Of course, it could've been Esc+Enter+End, but there were a limited number of language-independent keys. All of the alphanumeric keys were out.
posted by Kattullus at 12:50 PM on September 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
Of course, it could've been Esc+Enter+End, but there were a limited number of language-independent keys. All of the alphanumeric keys were out.
posted by Kattullus at 12:50 PM on September 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
It's never safe to turn off your computer.
That takes me back. Weirdly, I remember seeing it, but not setting it up, but I was the only person with access that was capable of doing so.
The only person, at least.
posted by Wrinkled Stumpskin at 12:51 PM on September 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
That takes me back. Weirdly, I remember seeing it, but not setting it up, but I was the only person with access that was capable of doing so.
The only person, at least.
posted by Wrinkled Stumpskin at 12:51 PM on September 15, 2014 [1 favorite]
zixyer: If it was a single key, they would have to address the problem of accidentally pressing it. Probably by requiring a double tap or holding it down for a few seconds before it would work.Turn your keyboard upside-down, or rest some papers on it, and any key could be held down. Any number of things could cause key stutter to simulate a double tap.
Nope, for my money an improbable, non-alphabetic combination of keys at opposite ends of the keyboard is pretty damn near perfect.
After that, everything should happen with a single confirmation, achievable with either mouse or keyboard. None of this "Are you sure you want to shut down our annoying system?" crap I face on cellphone apps.
posted by IAmBroom at 2:34 PM on September 15, 2014
> If it was a single key, they would have to address the problem of accidentally pressing it.
The original Apple II must have been fresh in people's minds. My school still had 'em only a couple of years before the first IBM PC debuted, all with tape cassette cases strategically placed.
posted by morganw at 3:10 PM on September 15, 2014
The original Apple II must have been fresh in people's minds. My school still had 'em only a couple of years before the first IBM PC debuted, all with tape cassette cases strategically placed.
> The original RESET key was in the upper right-hand corner of the keyboard. The problem with that key was that it had the same feel as the keys around it, making it possible to accidentally hit RESET and lose the entire program that was being so carefully entered. One user modification was to pop off the RESET keycap and put a rubber washer under it, making it necessary to apply more pressure than usual to do a RESET. Apple fixed this twice, once by replacing the spring under the keycap with a stiffer one, and finally by making it necessary to press the CTRL key and the RESET together to make a RESET cycle happen.Ataris put the reset key over with Start, Select and Option keys. On the 800, it looks like there's a guard on Reset, but on the 400 it was just another (membrane and hard to press, but all the keys were like that) button.
posted by morganw at 3:10 PM on September 15, 2014
After that, everything should happen with a single confirmation, achievable with either mouse or keyboard.
Oh man. Force-quit a stuck Win 7 program: then you must dismiss "Windows is searching for a solution on line...." Has any one ever seen it find one? Why is it searching? I just gave it the solution: kill the program.
posted by thelonius at 5:04 PM on September 15, 2014 [2 favorites]
Oh man. Force-quit a stuck Win 7 program: then you must dismiss "Windows is searching for a solution on line...." Has any one ever seen it find one? Why is it searching? I just gave it the solution: kill the program.
posted by thelonius at 5:04 PM on September 15, 2014 [2 favorites]
I think it's doing a stack dump of the process to send to Microsoft. It has to keep the hung process running to do this, but I have no idea why it takes so long.
posted by zixyer at 8:43 PM on September 15, 2014
posted by zixyer at 8:43 PM on September 15, 2014
« Older "I've worked on a building site all day, and it's... | RIP Douglas E. Smith Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by signal at 7:32 PM on September 14, 2014