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I'm friends with Peter. I don't think he'd mind me saying: He didn't set out to build the empire that he did--he really wanted independence for one person (an

by dlg 11y ago

I'm friends with Peter. I don't think he'd mind me saying: He didn't set out to build the empire that he did--he really wanted independence for one person (and it just turned out that what we built was so good that lots of people wanted it). He doesn't want to be in the limelight. So, as the article mentioned, he's chosen to focus on philanthropy and art and just watches our business from afar. He's a smart, great guy.

jacquesm 11y ago
Peter Norton wrote some pretty tight assembly, I learned a lot about data structures and coding from prying apart the Norton Utilities one-by-one. Super stuff, last but not least because it brought a fairly powerful command line to DOS which was in dire need of some tools.
- bbarn 11y ago
  In the pre-internet era, I remember going to my local library and checking out the programmer's guide.. probably six times before I got my own copy for a christmas present later that year. When you couldn't just stack overflow your problem, books like that were gold. I'd probably have ended my early teenage obsession at 14 if I hadn't had access to it.
newscracker 11y ago
> He didn't set out to build the empire that he did -- he really wanted independence for one person (and it just turned out that what we built was so good that lots of people wanted it) Regardless of his original motives, he must really be proud that a huge bunch of people would agree that in the MS DOS world and the world thereafter, he was a big hero who produced terrific utilities and terrific books...stuff that many people learning about computers were utterly fascinated by and could in turn use that knowledge to create their own cool stuff. Where would people have been with a creaky OS but without UnErase, Speed Disk, Disk Doctor, Disk Editor, Ghost and many others? :) If you're in touch with him, do convey the wishes and regards from a whole community of hackers. :)

by dlg 11y ago

jacquesm 11y ago

Peter Norton wrote some pretty tight assembly, I learned a lot about data structures and coding from prying apart the Norton Utilities one-by-one. Super stuff, last but not least because it brought a fairly powerful command line to DOS which was in dire need of some tools.

bbarn 11y ago
In the pre-internet era, I remember going to my local library and checking out the programmer's guide.. probably six times before I got my own copy for a christmas present later that year. When you couldn't just stack overflow your problem, books like that were gold. I'd probably have ended my early teenage obsession at 14 if I hadn't had access to it.

newscracker 11y ago

> He didn't set out to build the empire that he did -- he really wanted independence for one person (and it just turned out that what we built was so good that lots of people wanted it) Regardless of his original motives, he must really be proud that a huge bunch of people would agree that in the MS DOS world and the world thereafter, he was a big hero who produced terrific utilities and terrific books...stuff that many people learning about computers were utterly fascinated by and could in turn use that knowledge to create their own cool stuff. Where would people have been with a creaky OS but without UnErase, Speed Disk, Disk Doctor, Disk Editor, Ghost and many others? :) If you're in touch with him, do convey the wishes and regards from a whole community of hackers. :)