Microsoft co-founder has admitted for the first time that using the key combination of Control-Alt-Delete to log into a PC was a mistake.
Gates commented on the so-called “three finger salute” in a talk at a Harvard University fundraising event, video of which was posted online on Thursday.
The awkward combination has been a feature of the Windows operating system since the earliest days of personal computers. It is a key input that allows users to log in, access the task manager and reboot the computer. Gates said it was not his original choice.
“It was a mistake,” Gates said. “We could have had a single button, but the guy who did the IBM keyboard design didn’t wanna give us our single button.”