Bill Gates Says Control-Alt-Delete Was a "Mistake," Points the Finger at IBM

Who's to blame/credit for the most famous key combination in history?

It doesn't matter how long you've been using a PC, as long as there's a keyboard involved, you're 

probably familiar with the Control-Alt-Delete combination, or the three-finger salute, as some have come to call it. Decades after the key combination was conceived, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates candidly admits that it was a "mistake, but don't point the finger at him, let IBM share some of the blame.

"We could have had a single button, but they guy who did the IBM keyboard design didn't want to give us our single button," Gates said during an interview at a Harvard fundraising campaign,according to The Verge.

The combination was invented by David Bradley, an engineer who helped build the original IBM PC. It was originally intended to reboot the PC, though its function has evolved over time. One of the more common uses these days is to bring up the Task Manager, especially in times of distress when something wonky is going on.

If you're thinking that Gates must have other decisions he laments even more than Control-Alt-Delete, you'd be right. Sitting up the totem pole of regret is the way Microsoft approached the mobile market.

"We didn't miss cellphones, but the way we went about it didn't allow us to get the leadership," Gates said earlier this year.