Following up on the history of the Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 blue screen messages, John Vert admits that he wrote the Windows NT blue screen of death. In particular, he explains why it was white text on a blue background. (That it happened to match the Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 color scheme was a coincidence.)
As I recall, it was John Vert who taught me the basics of Alpha AXP assembly language. (As I noted earlier, As Richard Bond taught me the basics of Itanium assembly language.)