I disagree. It would be too easy to accidentally hit 1 button and reboot your system by mistake. The Ctrl+Alt+Del combo is not something you fat finger by mistake.

From a UI perspective, it can see that it may cause problems for a few people (for example, someone with the use of only 1 hand).

I thought it was a poor choice of words, that what he really meant that it wasn't created by design, it happened by chance or accident.

LifeinAsia: EXACTLY !

Ctrl+Alt+Del was, at one stage on one of my machines, one of the most used combinations. I agree, it would have been wrong to have a single button. I have enough trouble with the wife hitting the wrong combinations when leaving something on the kb.

It would be too easy to accidentally hit 1 button and reboot your system by mistake.

?
ctrl-alt-del doesn't reboot. It takes you to a dialog box.* Or does the current OS have a timer leading to a default action? I only use That Other Platform at the library, which is a mess of other departments' hand-me-downs and Gates Foundation grants from 2001. All of those have the version where the dialog box stays forever.


* "Do you want to shut down, restart, or I-forget-the-third-option"? Helloo? If I hadn't wanted to shut down, I wouldn't have selected the menu item that says Shut Down. Not, and I stress this point, "Shut down or assorted other actions that we'll tell you about when you get there". Suppressing related editorial comment about big-name game developers who neglect to code a response to a Shut Down or Log Out message.

ctrl-alt-del doesn't reboot

since Gates was taking about the IBM keyboard design, he was talking about the PC-DOS 1.0 era.
Back then it DID reboot a DOS machine.
FWIW: IBM also sold the machine with CP/M-86 by Digital research, but at a pricing that made it unpopular.

They just continued to use the old shutdown keyboard combination to login in windows after MS-DOS 6.*
I think that's where they made the mistake - but if Mr. Gates were to admit that, he'd not have a scapegoat in IBM's keyboard.

IBM also sold the machine with CP/M

Noooo! Not CP/M! I still have nightmares about that :(

I don't get it.

“Why, when I want to turn on my software and computer, do I need to have three fingers on Control, Alt, Delete?” asked David Rubenstein

What is he talking about? Which version of Windows do you need to press those buttons to turn the computer on or log in?

Windows NT machines on up required the user to use Ctrl+Alt+Del to bring up the user login. XP and other consumer versions let you bypass this.