Black Screen Of Death & Blue Screen Of Death - BSOD

Have you ever experienced getting the Black/Blue Screen Of Death when using one of the Microsoft Windows versions? Well, BSOD is the term originally referred to the "Black Screen Of Death" which occurred in Microsoft Windows 3.0 according to Wallace B. McClure's blog. In a wikipedia page, the phenomenon presents in all versions of OS/2 Operating System.

If talking about where and when the term "BSOD" was coined, a page in hubpages stated that there are many. However, two different stories about this were mentioned. On the one hand, the term BSOD, which was used to refer to the "Black Screen Of Death", originated from the

Coca-Cola in Atlanta, GA in 1991 when the user would try to run WordPerfect and get the dreaded screen.

On the other hand, the term was coined sometimes during the late 1980s by the development teams at Lattice, Inc. during the pre-release development of the OS/2.

The screen would occur during porting of certain tools and when the NULL pointers were de-referenced in application. When describing the process and feedback to IBM Austin, the developers termed the stop screen as the "Blue Screen Of Death".

So, what actually is the BSOD if you get one in Microsoft Windows?
BSOD occurs when the system encounters the critical system error, and that the system must shut down to prevent damage. It is the result of various problems such as memory compatibility issues, CPU voltage issues, hard drive issues, heating graphic card issues, and much more.

Reference:
Origin of BSOD by Wallace B. McClure
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_screen_of_death
http://hubpages.com/hub/Where-did-the-blue-screen-of-death-come-from