In the second half of July large-scale failure of CrowdStrike hit Windows and a lot of businesses around the world. Many people have seen the «blue screen of death» — Microsoft developer told his story.
When BSOD became a hot topic on the Internet, Raymond Chen, an experienced Windows developer, wrote a blog post called «There is no mystery about who wrote the «blue screen of death».
«Somehow there is a claim of a 30-year mystery surrounding the «blue screen of death» Microsoft. The argument is that there are three conflicting sources of authorship: Steve Ballmer, John Wert, and me. But in reality, there is no conflict. There are three different blue screens, and each has a different» author.
Initially, the «death screen» was not about death at all, but, as Chen jokingly puts it, the «blue misery screen». It was triggered by pressing CTRL+ATL+DEL simultaneously. Chen notes that the first text part, not the overall BSOU message code, was written by Steve Ballmer for Windows 3.1.
The black BSOD that Microsoft has been testing for some time in Windows 11 was originally also present in Windows 3.1, although there is little connection. It was probably the least informative of all.
In 1993, the Windows NT 3.1 BSOD appeared, which was created by John Werth. Windows NT 3.1 was also the first true 32-bit Windows OS — the name NT stood for «new technology».
Windows 95 also had its own BSOD and allowed the user to skip the error message. Raymond Chen developed it.
It was also the most famous Windows 98 BSOD — which showed itself during Microsoft’s presentation at the annual COMDEX trade show in 1998.
Sources: Microsoft