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TechnologySurprise 4/5Difficulty 3/5Reviewed on October 17, 2026

The Ctrl+Alt+Delete shortcut was created in 1981 by an IBM engineer to restart the computer without switching it off.

Why it is true

David Bradley designed it for the programmers of the first IBM PC, picking three keys far apart so that nobody would press it by accident. Years later Bill Gates admitted he would have preferred a single button and that the combination had been a mistake.

Source: IBM Archives

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