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Comment by RexRollman | Hacker News Reader

That was my understanding and I see no problem with it.

Indeed, it was an important security feature. I think Bill is just saying that they should've got PC manfacturers to add a "Log On" key to the keyboard which they could've caught in the OS in the same way as Ctrl+Alt+Del.

I think the only other key that has this low-level trap feature is SysRq (usually Alt+PrintScreen), which, of course, Linux uses for [Magic SysRq](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_SysRq_key).

Now that I think of it, "Press 'System Request' to log on" has a nice ring to it. A shame it was it in the shifted position on IBM PC keyboards.

There's no special "low level feature" when your keyboard hangs off a serial bus (as did pm keyboards from the start. XT, AT, PS/2, USB...) As far as I know also C-A-Del was just the default in the original bios keyboard handler to trigger a quick reboot.

Windows, for example, has a (by default disabled) feature to trigger a kernel panic on Ctrl+Scroll lock. Also purely software based and just as arbitrary in its choice of keys. And also very useful to recover from an otherwise stuck system.

(As an aside, why do you say "Bill" instead of "Gates", or "BillG" as I believe Microsoft employees refer to him?)

Yes, he said that. If he really believed it then why didn't the Microsoft Natural keyboard, which added the Windows logo keys and the menu key, also add a special "login" button?

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