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Wikipedia: three-finger salute (computing)

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This article is about the Computer Keyboard Combination. For other meanings, see three-finger salute.

In computing, the three-finger salute is a jocular term for the keyboard combination that forces a soft reboot, brings up the process manager (on Windows, BeOS or Mac OS X, and KDE-based Linuxes) or a jump to ROM monitor. These keys are sometimes referred to in computer manuals as interrupt keys, since they are often used to interrupt the operation of a malfunctioning program. The "three-finger salute" is named after the one- and two-finger salutes, euphemistic names for rude hand gestures. Other humorous synonyms include the "Vulcan nerve pinch" or "Romulan death grip" from the original Star Trek TV series.

Platform	Key combo	Function
Acorn Machines (pre-1987)	Break	Processor reset, although confusingly always referred to as soft reset. Hold down Ctrl as well for so-called hard reset (reinitializes various settings); hold down Shift to boot from disk (or not to, if disk is the default).
Acorn and post-Acorn RISC OS machines.	Reset button	Processor reset, although confusingly always referred to as soft reset. Hold down Ctrl as well for so-called hard reset (reinitializes various settings); hold down Shift to boot from disk (or not to, if disk is the default). Hold down various other keys to restore CMOS settings to safe configurations.
Acorn and post-Acorn RISC OS machines.	Ctrl + Break	Perform a soft reboot.
Amiga	Ctrl + Left Amiga (or Commodore) + Right Amiga	Reboot the machine
Amstrad CPC 464 and CPC6128	Ctrl + Shift + Esc	Reset (cold)
Amstrad PCW	Shift + Extra + Exit	Reset (cold)
IBM PC under DOS	Ctrl + Alt + Del	Perform a soft reboot
IBM PC under Windows 3.x shell	Ctrl + Alt + Del	Close unresponsive applications or (if pressed twice) perform a soft reboot
IBM PC under Microsoft Windows (95, 98, and Me)	Ctrl + Alt + Del	Bring up simplistic task manager (actually "Close Program" dialog) or (if pressed twice) perform a soft reboot
IBM PC under Windows NT-based OS (NT, 2000, XP, 2003 and Vista)	Ctrl + Shift + Esc	Bring up the Windows Task Manager
	Ctrl + Alt + Del	Also known as the Secure Attention Sequence; bring up the logins screen (when pressed in login screen), or the "Windows security" dialog or (configurable on Windows 2000 and later) the Windows Task Manager (when logged in)
IBM PC under OS/2	Ctrl + Esc	Bring up the Window List (unblocking the synchronous input queue)
	Ctrl + Alt + Del	Perform a soft reboot
	Ctrl + Alt + NumLock (twice)	Halt the system and begin a system dump to floppy disk
IBM PC under Linux	Ctrl + Alt + Del	Signal the init process (usually configured to soft reboot)
IBM PC under Linux	Alt + SysRq + function key	Depending on the function key, performs a certain low-level function. Examples: sync (flush caches), reboot (forced soft reboot), unmount (remount filesystems readonly), etc...
IBM PC under other OS	Ctrl + Alt + Del	Often (but not always) configured to reboot
Sinclair ZX Spectrum	Break	Halted peripheral (cassette tape or printer) operations with the report D BREAK - CONT repeats, or halted BASIC programs with the report L BREAK into program.
Sun workstation	L1/Stop + A	Enter ROM monitor
Sun workstation (serial console)	Break	Enter ROM monitor
Alphas running OpenVMS	Ctrl + P	Enter ROM Serial Console or reboot, depending on setting in SRM
Apple II family machines	Ctrl + Reset	Enter the monitor or ROM BASIC
	Ctrl + Open Apple + Reset	Reboot the machine
	Ctrl + Option (Closed Apple) + Reset	Enter BIOS setup, then reboot
	Ctrl + Option (Closed Apple) + Open Apple + Reset	Self-test, then reboot
	Ctrl + Open Apple + Escape	(Apple IIGs) Enter the control panel
Apple Macintosh computers with power button on keyboard	Command + Power	Enter debugger
Apple Macintosh computers with power button on keyboard	Control + Command + Power (sometimes known as a "Control Flower Power")	Reboot the machine
Mac OS (7 and later)	Command + Option + Esc	Force quit applications
SGI workstation	Left Shift + Left Ctrl + Left Alt + Keypad Divide + F12	Restart X server (same as Ctrl + Alt + Backspace below)
Commodore 64/128	Run/Stop + Restore	Halt (soft reconfiguration) and return to READY prompt
X Window System	Ctrl + Alt + Backspace	Restarts windowing system, logging the user out if using an X display manager, kills X otherwise
TI-80, TI-81, TI-82, TI-83, TI-84	Mode, Alpha, S	Shows ROM version number. [Enter] enters self test mode
TI-85, TI-86	2nd, Mode, Alpha, S	Shows ROM version number. [Enter] enters self test mode
TI-89	2nd + Left Arrow + Right Arrow + On	Restarts the calculator and clears RAM Esc + On Force Break without restarting RAM
Voyage 200	2nd + Hand + On	Restarts the calculator and clears RAM
HP-48	On + C	Restarts RPL, clearing the Stack and PICT, closing IO, and returning to the HOME directory (but not purging the memory)
HP-48	On + A + F	As above, but also purges the memory
BeOS	Ctrl-Alt-Shift and click an applications entry in the Deskbar	Kills application
Zenith IBM-PC clones	Ctrl-Alt-Ins	Brings up hardware configuration menu
Scientific Atlanta Explorer DHCT	Volume Down + Volume Up + Info (on settop box; not remote)	Reboots box (starts up to blue EXPLORER screen)
Olivetti M20	Ctrl + Reset	Soft resets the machine
TI Explorer Lisp Machine	Left-Ctrl Left-Meta Right-Ctrl Right-Meta Abort	Restart the system

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