David Bradley (engineer)

Bradley wrote about the development of the IBM PC, including Control-Alt-Delete, in the August 2011 issue of the IEEE's Computer magazine.

At the 20th anniversary of the IBM PC on August 8, 2001 at The Tech Museum, while on a panel with Bill Gates, Bradley said, "I have to share the credit. I may have invented it [Control-Alt-Delete], but I think Bill made it famous."

In 1993 he returned to be the manager of architecture in the PC group.

In November 1987 Bradley became manager of advanced processor design. His group developed the 486/25 Power Platform and the PS/2 Models 90 and 95. In 1991 he became manager of systems architecture for the Entry Systems Technology group. In 1992 he became the architecture manager for the group that developed a personal computer using the PowerPC RISC microprocessor.

Bradley is the author of Assembly Language Programming for the IBM Personal Computer (Simon & Schuster, .mw-parser-output cite.citation{font-style:inherit;word-wrap:break-word}.mw-parser-output .citation q{quotes:"\"""\"""'""'"}.mw-parser-output .citation:target{background-color:rgba(0,127,255,0.133)}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-free a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-free a{background:linear-gradient(transparent,transparent),url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Lock-green.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .id-lock-registration a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-registration a{background:linear-gradient(transparent,transparent),url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .id-lock-subscription a,.mw-parser-output .citation .cs1-lock-subscription a{background:linear-gradient(transparent,transparent),url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg")right 0.1em center/9px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .cs1-ws-icon a{background:linear-gradient(transparent,transparent),url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4c/Wikisource-logo.svg")right 0.1em center/12px no-repeat}.mw-parser-output .cs1-code{color:inherit;background:inherit;border:none;padding:inherit}.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-error{display:none;color:#d33}.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-error{color:#d33}.mw-parser-output .cs1-maint{display:none;color:#3a3;margin-left:0.3em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-format{font-size:95%}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left{padding-left:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right{padding-right:0.2em}.mw-parser-output .citation .mw-selflink{font-weight:inherit}ISBN 0-13-049171-3, January 1984), also released in French as Assembleur sur IBM PC (Dunod, ISBN 2-225-80695-0), Russian ("Radio" Publishing House, Moscow), and Bulgarian ("Technica" Publishing house, 1989).

In March 1980, the multiple-key reboot concept had been introduced for the Apple II by Videx in its VideoTerm display card add-on, requiring Control-Reset, rather than Reset alone, to reboot the machine. The innovation was noted and well received at the time.

In 1980 Bradley was one of twelve engineers developing the first IBM Personal Computer. Bradley developed the ROM BIOS. That got him promoted to manage the BIOS and diagnostics for the IBM PC/XT. In 1983 Bradley formed the Personal Systems Architecture Department. In 1984 he helped manage development of the Personal System/2 Model 30.

Multiple-key reboot had been introduced by Exidy, Inc., in 1978, for its Sorcerer Z80 computer. It provided two Reset buttons, which must be pressed simultaneously to achieve reboot.

Bachelors, Electrical Engineering, University of Dayton (Ohio), 1971. Master of Science, Electrical Engineering, Purdue University, 1972. PhD, Electrical Engineering, Purdue University, 1975.

Much of Bradley's career has been at IBM. Bradley received a B.E.E. degree in 1971 from the University of Dayton, (Ohio). He went on to Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, where he completed an M.S. degree in 1972 and Ph.D. in 1975, both in electrical engineering. Upon graduation he went to work for IBM in Boca Raton, Florida, as senior associate engineer. He worked on the Series/1 system. In 1978 he developed the I/O system for the System/23 Datamaster.

David J. Bradley (born 4 January 1949) is one of the twelve engineers who worked on the original IBM PC, developing the computer's ROM BIOS code. Bradley is credited for implementing the "Control-Alt-Delete" (Ctrl-Alt-Del) key combination that was used to reboot the computer. Bradley joined IBM in 1975 after earning his doctorate in electrical engineering from Purdue University with a dissertation on computer architectures.