Steve Ballmer wrote the Blue Screen of Death message

Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer wrote the text for the original Blue Screen of Death (BSOD). Microsoft developer Raymond Chen revealed the surprising fact in a blog post earlier this week, detailing Ballmer’s dissatisfaction with the original text that flashed up when a program wasn’t responding in Windows 3.1. Ballmer was head of the systems division at the time, Chen recalls, and when he visited the Windows team he thought the wording didn’t "sound right" for the ctrl+alt+del dialogue. The Windows team challenged Ballmer to do a better job, and he did.

A few days after the initial interaction, Ballmer emailed his own take on what the ctrl+alt+del should say and the Blue Screen of Death was born. 22 years ago, when Windows 3.1 was...

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