The
blue screen of death is usually caused (
today at least) by bad
kernel level items, such as third party
device drivers. With that said, a friend of mine had an
interesting experience with it.
He had just bought a
three button mouse; not a
Kensington, or a
Logitech one, or a
Microsoft one, just some crappy
third party (
fourth party, if such exists) mouse. This was back when three buttons was all the rage like in
1997. He installed the
driver, was playing with it, and all was
happy. The only problem it seemed was that the middle button seemed to
blue screen the machine. Every time.
It was
depressing a first, but like most
horrifically annoying instances, it was
hysterical after about ten minutes. It became the blue screen button. Need to see
blue? Just click here. It was
great. Whenever his computer was giving him hell, he'd click that third
button. It was a way to
threaten the computer.
Eventually he got a new mouse, or a new driver, or what not, but still, it was hysterical seeing the
accuracy and the
reproducability of that one icky kernel
bug. I hope that he still has that mouse around, just as a
momento. Maybe the mouse manufacturer only tested their driver for two of the
buttons. Who knows. That
bug was
buggy, and looking back on it, I needed to do more with my
friday nights.