The black screen of death (BlSoD), is either of two things:
- a failure mode of Microsoft Windows 3.x, or
- the screen displayed by the OS/2 operating system in the event of either a system error from which it cannot recover (a TRAP screen) or a "hard" error in a program running in "full screen" mode (a less serious application failure). OS/2 is a computer Operating system, initially created by Microsoft and IBM, then later developed by IBM exclusively An operating system (commonly abbreviated OS and O/S) is the software component of a Computer system that is responsible for the management and coordination
The black screen of death has been present in all versions of OS/2. OS/2 is a computer Operating system, initially created by Microsoft and IBM, then later developed by IBM exclusively
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The Windows black screen of death
Windows 3. x
In Windows 3.x the black screen of death is the behaviour that occurred when a DOS application failed to execute properly. It was often known to occur in connection with attempting certain operations while networking drivers were resident in memory. (Most commonly, but not exclusively, it was seen while the Novell NetWare client for DOS, NETX, was loaded. NetWare is a Network operating system developed by Novell Inc DOS, short for "Disk Operating System" is a shorthand term for several closely related Operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market )
The system would switch the display to text mode, but would display nothing, leaving the user looking at an entirely black screen with a blinking cursor in the upper left corner. At this point, the user could do nothing but perform a cold reboot to get the system running normally again.
According to Wallace McClure of ASP. net[1], the phrase was originally coined in the summer of 1991 by Ed Brown, a technician with Coca-Cola Company's IT department in Atlanta, GA. The Coca-Cola Company ( is the world's largest beverage company largest manufacturer distributor and marketer of non-alcoholic beverage concentrates and Syrups in the world He reports that the company was rolling out Windows 3.0 within the Global Marketing group and when the users would attempt to run WordPerfect, they would randomly receive a BlSOD. Windows 30 is the third major release of Microsoft Windows, and came out on 22 May 1990
Later versions of Windows
Windows 95, 98, 2000, ME, XP, and the official release of Windows Vista also display a Black Screen of Death when the operating system cannot boot. Windows Vista (ˈvɪstə is a line of Operating systems developed by Microsoft for use on Personal computers including home and business desktops This is usually due to a missing file. Often the user must reinstall Windows. If the missing file is critical to the boot process, however, more often than not the boot screen will inform the user of the missing file.
In other cases, the black screen of death was replaced with the Blue Screen of Death. The Blue Screen of Death (also known as a stop error, BSoD, bluescreen, or Blue Screen of Doom) is an Error screen displayed
A black screen can also be caused by display driver problems, or selecting a mode that the monitor cannot display, though this may result in a warning on the monitor, or even in damage to a CRT monitor if it is not protected against excessive scan rate.
The OS/2 Black screen of death
In OS/2, a black screen of death is either a "TRAP screen" or "full-screen hard-error VIO pop-up". OS/2 is a computer Operating system, initially created by Microsoft and IBM, then later developed by IBM exclusively They switch the display adapter to text mode. The display is 80 columns by 25 rows, with white lettering on a black background and a black border, and uses the text mode font of the display adapter.
TRAP screens
A "TRAP screen" occurs when the kernel encounters an error from which it cannot recover, a system crash. In Computer science, the kernel is the central component of most computer Operating systems (OS A crash in Computing is a condition where a program (either an application or part of the Operating system) stops performing its expected function and also Usually this is a result of faulty (or overclocked) hardware or a hardware malfunction, but it may also result from a software error in either the kernel or a device driver.
The "TRAP screen" contains a dump of the processor registers and stack, and information about the version of the operating system and the actual processor exception that was triggered.
The only actions the user can take in this situation is to perform a soft reboot by pressing Control-Alt-Delete or to perform a system dump by pressing Control-Alt-NumLock twice. In Computing, booting ( booting up) is a bootstrapping process that starts Operating systems when the user turns on a Computer system Control-Alt-Delete (often abbreviated to Ctrl-Alt-Del, also known as the "three-finger salute" is a computer keyboard command on PC compatible systems Control-Alt-Delete (often abbreviated to Ctrl-Alt-Del, also known as the "three-finger salute" is a computer keyboard command on PC compatible systems
Hard error screens
A "full-screen hard-error VIO pop-up" occurs when a process incurs a "hard" error, either an outright application program crash or a potentially recoverable hard error (such as an attempt to access a floppy disc device where no disc has been inserted into the drive). A crash in Computing is a condition where a program (either an application or part of the Operating system) stops performing its expected function and also
The screen is displayed by the "hard error daemon" process, which handles hard errors from all other processes. Technically, the screen is a "VIO pop-up" screen. All processes (except the one that has incurred the error, any that also incur hard errors whilst the first error is being displayed, and any that themselves wish to display a "VIO pop-up" screen) continue to run, and the system continues to operate as normal. The hard error daemon uses a VIO pop-up when either the system has been booted into text mode or the hard error has occurred in a process running in a full-screen session.
The "pop-up screen" contains information about the processor exception that was triggered and the identity of the process.
The user is prompted for the action to be taken, and may choose
- to end the process,
- to display more information (which comprises a dump of the processor registers and stack for that process),
- to retry the operation (if appropriate — I/O errors are retryable, CPU errors are not), or
- to ignore the problem and continue (if appropriate — I/O errors are ignorable, CPU errors are not).
Wii
The Wii video game console also displays a black screen of death when there are hardware or disc problems. Hardware is a general term that refers to the physical artifacts of a Technology.
Nintendo DS
A "black screen of death" can occur at the very beginning of a Metroid Prime Hunters match. The Nintendo DS's screens turn black and the system must be shut off to fix the problem (which can result in the player's connection history dropping).
References
Dapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic