Who Wrote the Code for Windows' 'Blue Screen of Death'? (sfgate.com) 40
Who wrote the code for Windows' notorious "Blue Screen of Death?
It's "been a source of some contention," writes SFGate:
A Microsoft developer blog post from Raymond Chen in 2014 said that former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer wrote the text for the Ctrl+Alt+Del dialog in Windows 3.1. That very benign post led to countless stories from tech media claiming Ballmer was the inventor of the "Blue Screen of Death." That, in turn, prompted a follow-up developer blog post from Chen titled "Steve Ballmer did not write the text for the blue screen of death...."
Chen then later tried to claim he was responsible for the "Blue Screen of Death," saying he coded it into Windows 95. Problem is, it already existed in previous iterations of Windows, and 95 simply removed it. Chen added it back in, which he sort of cops to, saying: "And I'm the one who wrote it. Or at least modified it last." No one challenged Chen's 2014 self-attribution, until 2021, when former Microsoft developer Dave Plummer stepped in. According to Plummer, the "Blue Screen of Death" was actually the work of Microsoft developer John Vert, whom logs revealed to be the father of the modern Windows blue screen way back in version 3.1.
Plummer spoke directly with Vert, according to Vert, who'd remembered that he got the idea because there was already a blue screen with white text in both his machine at the time (a MIPS RISC box) and this text editor (SlickEdit)...
Chen then later tried to claim he was responsible for the "Blue Screen of Death," saying he coded it into Windows 95. Problem is, it already existed in previous iterations of Windows, and 95 simply removed it. Chen added it back in, which he sort of cops to, saying: "And I'm the one who wrote it. Or at least modified it last." No one challenged Chen's 2014 self-attribution, until 2021, when former Microsoft developer Dave Plummer stepped in. According to Plummer, the "Blue Screen of Death" was actually the work of Microsoft developer John Vert, whom logs revealed to be the father of the modern Windows blue screen way back in version 3.1.
Plummer spoke directly with Vert, according to Vert, who'd remembered that he got the idea because there was already a blue screen with white text in both his machine at the time (a MIPS RISC box) and this text editor (SlickEdit)...
Why change this? (Score:3)
/. summary:
Plummer spoke directly with Vert, according to Vert, who'd remembered that he got the idea because there was already a blue screen with white text in both his machine at the time (a MIPS RISC box) and this text editor (SlickEdit)...
TFA:
According to Plummer (who spoke directly with Vert), the machine Vert used (a MIPS RISC box) and his favorite editor at the time (SlickEdit) both had white text on a blue screen and “using the same color led to a more consistent experience.”
"Summary" doesn't usually mean "not even shorter, and also incomprehensible".
Maybe "this text editor" was an auto correction of "his"?
Be that as it may... (Score:4, Funny)
Re: Be that as it may... (Score:4, Informative)
Nope, we don't know that. Windows 3.1 had both blue screens and General Protection Faults, and the latter where white, not blue.
Re: Be that as it may... (Score:2)
Oops, please ignore my previous message. It's in fact true, but I didn't read the parent carefully, and didn't get the joke.
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GPF (Score:2)
Who is General Protection? /s
Re: (Score:3)
> What we do know for sure is that it's General Protection's fault.
Who is General Protection and why is he reading my disk?
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/Oblg. Who is 'General Failure' and why is he reading my hard disk? - H. Tall
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People in general lack insight, hence failures become accomplishments.
I don't care 'bout that (Score:5, Insightful)
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This article wasting brain cells over the attribution of the BSOD is metaphorical for Microsoft's focus on the things that matter least.
How is this a metaphor. The article isn't written by Microsoft. You sound like you're actively trying hard to find things to whine about. Here you are complaining about wasting braincells while discussing that braincells were wasted. Just think of all the good you could have done in the world instead. But no, you're just as bad as those you are complaining about.
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Why would Windows be related to something unable to multitask? Do you not know how computers work? Write posts with your brain, not with your hateboner.
*Posted from Ubuntu 22.04 LTS.
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I totally forgot about the goodies that came with the Windows 95 install CD, until just now. 30 years is a long time.
Not surprising (Score:2)
It's not too surprising that Raymond Chen attributed BSODs to Ballmer in 2014, while Ballmer was still the boss of Microsoft
BSOD (Score:2)
Ballmer (Score:4, Insightful)
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Similar myths are around about Bill Gates (no, he cannot really code), Elon Musk (no, he is not an engineer at all) and a few others. It is misguided hero-worship combined with a total lack of understanding.
Re:Ballmer (Score:4, Interesting)
Similar myths are around about Bill Gates (no, he cannot really code)
Bill Gates and Paul Allen did code way back in the day at the start of Microsoft in 1975. By 1992 when Windows 3.1 launched, I will assume he did not code much of that software.
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Elon Musk, provably, can code though, and yes he is an engineer. In coding, he's might not be on John Carmack's level, but he can code well enough to understand performance and things like that, plus the fact that he has a physics degree shows he has generalized learning capability. He wrote and sold a computer game when he was 12 and he and his brother created a web software startup in his early 20s. He is not an inventor (he hasn't invented anything or even conceptualized any unique ideas himself), but he
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Elon Musk, provably, can code though, and yes he is an engineer.
No, he is not. He is a Bachelor-level Physicist and mathematician. Hence he is not an engineer (and not a scientist eiethr) Seriously, stop the lying. And no, understanding calculus makes you in no way an engineer.
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Go away, with your superficial distinctions.
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What are you talking about? Gates has written emulators, compilers, interpreters, boot loaders, and more.
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Bill Gates DID code. He with Paul Allen formed Microsoft. Their first "product" if you will was Microsoft BASIC. You might remember the famous Bill Gates memo about hobbyists stealing their software when Gates found most people were copying BASIC around for their computers.
They started with a BASIC interpreter that became quite popular, and Paul Allen was one who flew to MITS in order to demonstrate it for the MITS Altair.
Beyond that Bill Gates was known for writing many more language compilers and assemble
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>you could take 8080 code and port it to a Z80 or 6502.
If you needed a tool to port from the 8080 to Z80 . . .
Tool to port 8080 binaries to Z80 (Score:2)
Set the DeLorean for the summer of 1982.
cp 8080.bin z80.bin
echo "Still pissed the boss vetoed using a 6809"
Not bitter, though
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Early Mac prototypes used the 6809. Even as far as a bouncing ball QuickDraw prototype.
But the obsession with a "single bank" of memory meant that it would only have 68k, which wouldn't be enough with a 20k video allocation.
And I recall a conversation with an engineer who described the final board of a machine as "disheartened". I think it ws the Olivetti Z8000 machine, but I'm not sure. The story was that it had been designed with a Motorola processor (68000?), but got switched over due to a government
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They only attributed the wording of the on-screen text to Ballmer, not the code behind it.
Developers developers developers developers (Score:2)
It was not me (Score:2)
I'm Brian ... and so's my wife (Score:2)
This is all rather tragic.
I've been a nerd for some time but I'm not sure I'd bother getting excited about fucked up last ditch error handling routines.
Real ... erm ... OSs abend with a proper lack of colour and silly emojis and create a massive screen dump (no way of scrolling back or saving to file/network) of complete gibberish hex that has nothing to do with actual the issue that caused it. Ideally that hex should be a Rick roll.
The C64 was blue with white text (Score:2)