«

So, David Bradley
<http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9046 742>
is the guy in the original IBM PC project who invented the ctrl-alt-del
sequence.

I always thought it was such a stupid idea. Other machines--like the Apple
Mac--had a hard-reset button, that was wired straight through to a pin on
the CPU. That was guaranteed to always work, no matter how badly wedged the
machine got. Yet IBM and the other Microsoft-compatibles had this lame key
sequence, that had to be mediated by the keyboard handler in the BIOS or
OS. Which meant that, if your system's interrupt handling was sufficiently
badly borked, the key sequence wouldn't work, and you had to power-cycle
the machine anyway.

Not to mention that memory-resident viruses would often intercept this key
sequence to ensure they could not be wiped from memory by hitting it.

Luckily some makers of Microsoft-compatible machines have recently cottoned
on to the usefulness of having a hard-reset button. But not all.

Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> So, David Bradley
> <http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9046 742>
> is the guy in the original IBM PC project who invented the ctrl-alt-del
> sequence.
>
> I always thought it was such a stupid idea. Other machines--like the Apple
> Mac--had a hard-reset button, that was wired straight through to a pin on
> the CPU. That was guaranteed to always work, no matter how badly wedged the
> machine got. Yet IBM and the other Microsoft-compatibles had this lame key
> sequence, that had to be mediated by the keyboard handler in the BIOS or
> OS. Which meant that, if your system's interrupt handling was sufficiently
> badly borked, the key sequence wouldn't work, and you had to power-cycle
> the machine anyway.
>
> Not to mention that memory-resident viruses would often intercept this key
> sequence to ensure they could not be wiped from memory by hitting it.
>
> Luckily some makers of Microsoft-compatible machines have recently cottoned
> on to the usefulness of having a hard-reset button. But not all.

The CPU is not the only component in a PC that needs resetting. Once a
PC gets in such a pickle that Ctrl+Alt+Del or even the reset button
won't do the trick, a power cycle is probably a good idea. It isn't
uncommon to have to completely turn off the PC to fix problems with
hardware that doesn't reset by using a soft reset or power down.

Oddly enough, while I haven't noticed any new PC featuring a hard reset,
I have noticed a trend away from reset buttons on the PC. If you need to
reset, you have to use the push-and-hold method to power down. Of
course, this often doesn't work.

Another reason Ctrl+Alt+Del is a good thing, is it gives you an
interrupt that occurs in direct response to user actions. Windows
exploits this, allowing you to bring up a window with key options (or
Taskmanager on XP when not on a domain), and will generally work quite
well even when the PC is under high load, and navigating through the
Start Menu is a painful process.

RL

In article <fj5dha$jre$>, RL did write:

> The CPU is not the only component in a PC that needs resetting.

Everything else that needs resetting will be reset by the ROM or BIOS code
that gets invoked as a result of hitting the reset button.

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <_zealand> wrote in
news:fj5fmf$l8m$:

> Everything else that needs resetting will be reset by the ROM or BIOS
> code that gets invoked as a result of hitting the reset button.

Except the power supply that feeds the pxe nic.
OFF AT THE WALL fixes so many things it is not funny any more.

--
Ciao, Dave

In article <fj5fmf$l8m$>, _zealand
says...
> In article <fj5dha$jre$>, RL did write:
>
> > The CPU is not the only component in a PC that needs resetting.
>
> Everything else that needs resetting will be reset by the ROM or BIOS code
> that gets invoked as a result of hitting the reset button.
>

Wrong. I have several times struck the situation where only a complete power-
down (e.g. disconnect at the wall/ups for 10 secs+) would reset a thoroughly
bollixed up machine completely. Don't forget that the 5V rail is ALWAYS on in
an ATX system, some memory-states are preserved through soft shutdown, soft
reset and even hard reset.

And, by the way, all my systems since the mid-80ies have had a hard reset
button. Every single one of them. It's simply a question of not buying cheap-
**** cases. And every one of my motherboards had a couple pins to connect it
to.

-P.

--
=========================================
firstname dot lastname at gmail fullstop com

"Lawrence D'Oliveiro" <_zealand> wrote in message
news:fj5bq2$idl$...
> So, David Bradley
> <http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9046 742>
> is the guy in the original IBM PC project who invented the ctrl-alt-del
> sequence.
>
> I always thought it was such a stupid idea. Other machines--like the Apple
> Mac--had a hard-reset button, that was wired straight through to a pin on
> the CPU. That was guaranteed to always work, no matter how badly wedged
> the
> machine got. Yet IBM and the other Microsoft-compatibles had this lame key
> sequence, that had to be mediated by the keyboard handler in the BIOS or
> OS. Which meant that, if your system's interrupt handling was sufficiently
> badly borked, the key sequence wouldn't work, and you had to power-cycle
> the machine anyway.
>
> Not to mention that memory-resident viruses would often intercept this key
> sequence to ensure they could not be wiped from memory by hitting it.
>
> Luckily some makers of Microsoft-compatible machines have recently
> cottoned
> on to the usefulness of having a hard-reset button. But not all.

You're years behind.
Individual programs can be pin pointed and shut down if no longer working
for some reason. No need to shut down the PC at all.


E. Scrooge

E. Scrooge wrote:
8><-------

the usefulness of having a hard-reset button. But not all.
>
> You're years behind.
> Individual programs can be pin pointed and shut down if no longer working
> for some reason. No need to shut down the PC at all.
>
>
> E. Scrooge
>
>

Ah a linux convert.....

regards

Thing

Peter Huebner wrote:
> In article <fj5fmf$l8m$>, _zealand
> says...
>> In article <fj5dha$jre$>, RL did write:
>>
>>> The CPU is not the only component in a PC that needs resetting.
>> Everything else that needs resetting will be reset by the ROM or BIOS code
>> that gets invoked as a result of hitting the reset button.
>>
>
> Wrong. I have several times struck the situation where only a complete power-
> down (e.g. disconnect at the wall/ups for 10 secs+) would reset a thoroughly
> bollixed up machine completely. Don't forget that the 5V rail is ALWAYS on in
> an ATX system, some memory-states are preserved through soft shutdown, soft
> reset and even hard reset.

My experience of this situation is the earlier and cheap ATX power
supplies somehow did not interrupt some power paths to the motherboard
totally so the machine's OS would crash but not reboot, just hang
there...pulling the power cord or pulling the 20/24pin connector off the
motherboard would fix it....cant say Ive seen that issue for a few years...

regards

Thing

"thingy" <> wrote in message
news:j34k25-...
> E. Scrooge wrote:
> 8><-------
>
> the usefulness of having a hard-reset button. But not all.
>>
>> You're years behind.
>> Individual programs can be pin pointed and shut down if no longer working
>> for some reason. No need to shut down the PC at all.
>>
>>
>> E. Scrooge
>
> Ah a linux convert.....
>
> regards
>
> Thing

Task Manager.
XP.
Capable of running thousands of non Microsoft programs that Linux can't.

But lets be completely fair. If the ONLY thing you ever want is Linux
then obviously there is nothing better than Linux.

Do you realise that most programs XP owners actually use aren't supplied by
Microsoft?

The next levels are well above the basic level of the OS.

If you haven't got a hardware then you might as well not bother at all.

E. Scrooge

On Thu, 6 Dec 2007 00:12:54 +1300, "E. Scrooge" <scrooge@*shot.co.nz (*sling)>
wrote:

>
>"Lawrence D'Oliveiro" <_zealand> wrote in message
>news:fj5bq2$idl$...
>> So, David Bradley
>> <http://computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9046 742>
>> is the guy in the original IBM PC project who invented the ctrl-alt-del
>> sequence.
>>
>> I always thought it was such a stupid idea. Other machines--like the Apple
>> Mac--had a hard-reset button, that was wired straight through to a pin on
>> the CPU. That was guaranteed to always work, no matter how badly wedged
>> the
>> machine got. Yet IBM and the other Microsoft-compatibles had this lame key
>> sequence, that had to be mediated by the keyboard handler in the BIOS or
>> OS. Which meant that, if your system's interrupt handling was sufficiently
>> badly borked, the key sequence wouldn't work, and you had to power-cycle
>> the machine anyway.
>>
>> Not to mention that memory-resident viruses would often intercept this key
>> sequence to ensure they could not be wiped from memory by hitting it.
>>
>> Luckily some makers of Microsoft-compatible machines have recently
>> cottoned
>> on to the usefulness of having a hard-reset button. But not all.
>
>You're years behind.
>Individual programs can be pin pointed and shut down if no longer working
>for some reason. No need to shut down the PC at all.

That's what I was thinking when I read that. Killing the unresponsive
application almost always works for me, no need to reboot.