5 ms·

Which reminds me that to this day there is no good replacement for Norton Commander (for UNIX systems, of course). Please, don't even start mentioning Midnight

by jwr 12y ago

Which reminds me that to this day there is no good replacement for Norton Commander (for UNIX systems, of course). Please, don't even start mentioning Midnight Commander. It is nowhere near as good. Oh, sure, it has a bazillion fancy features, but it just doesn't work that well, isn't as smooth as the original was. Remember, kids, not every file manager that has two panes can be called a "Norton Commander replacement"! Those of us who grew up using Norton Commander still look at the redesigned ("improved") numpads on modern keyboards and shake their head in horror and disbelief, remapping those keys to what they Should Be.

ajuc 12y ago
Dos navigator was better than nc. Also midnight commander has much better editor than both norton commander and dos navigator. I use mcedit instead of vi or nano and it works great.
- nathell 12y ago
  There also was Volkov Commander and DOS Controller. The latter is notable for managing to pack all the essential functionality of NC into a self-contained single .COM executable weighing in at less than 50KB.
- Intermernet 12y ago
  Xtree Gold FTW :-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XTree http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XTree
huhtenberg 12y ago
For Windows however there's an awesome and open source Far Manager - http://www.farmanager.com http://www.farmanager.com - but I guess if you know what NC was, then you already know about FM as well :)
- zura 12y ago
  For Windows, I used DISCo Commander for many years, then switched to Total Commander.
mongol 12y ago
I will still mention mc because I think it is great. What does it miss? Your nc habits are applicable, it does it's job.
nathell 12y ago
Tangentially related: Peter Norton didn't write Norton Commander. The original author was John Socha; the only thing NC has in common with Norton is the name and the Peter Norton Computing brand. As to Midnight Commander: it works well enough for me. The lack of smoothness, such as function keys or ESC not working at all times, is mostly due to the quirks in Unix itself and is no fault of MC per se.
NhanH 12y ago
I remembered using Norton Commander (albeit on DOS), but I can't seem to recall what the change to the numpad is, and how is it related with NC ??
easytiger 12y ago
If there is no good replacement it is likely because it doesn't need to exist. Shells are advanced enough now to be able to do everything you need in a more purposeful and extensible way. It isn't exactly complex to write something like that these days.
- jwr 12y ago
  You didn't use Norton Commander, did you? No, shells are not the answer. Don't get me wrong: I love my tcsh and wouldn't give it up for the world. But certain tasks are so much better done in a commander-type tool. And I disagree: it is quite complex to write something like that. It's easy to write a dual-pane file manager wannabe. It's very difficult to write a great tool that works fast and does exactly what is needed.
  - easytiger 12y ago
    What can only be done with nc? Also it isn't complex. If you have nc and you know specific things which make it better then implement something identical. It isn't magic.
ttctciyf 12y ago
I still mourn the passing of Vern Buerg's LIST.COM (and Buerg (d. 2009) himself) though the enhanced v1.81 version is still available for download if you search for it, it is 16-bit only, and would anyhow be not much use to me since I migrated to Linux 18 or so years ago. A 32bit/64bit replacement is being worked on with a beta available ( http://www.bizer.com/zblist/ http://www.bizer.com/zblist/ ) but that seems to be windows only and closed. The capabilities and performance of this tiny program were a source of wonder to me in my early dealings with the PC platform.
- ralphc 12y ago
  Ahhhh, list.com! Used to use that all the time! When it became list.exe I thought "well there goes the neighborhood."
  - jebblue 12y ago
    Same here, used list.com all the time back in the day.
- johansch 12y ago
  This was one of those brilliant little and elegant software designs that solved a particular problem perfectly, and really could not be improved in a major way. It had reached its design zenith. I used it lots from the end of the 80s to the end of DOS in like 95-97.
nodata 12y ago
Can you maybe say what was so good about Norton Commander, so that those of us who didn't use it can find out a little more?
rdtsc 12y ago
I used NC but I stopped when I gave up DOS many years ago and I just never felt the need for it. Don't remember thinking "Wish I had NC here to do this...". Somehow current drag and drop file managers and command line options on Linux just do the trick. Can go through a set of things you think NC is really great at that are just complicated with these other methods?
sjackso 12y ago
I don't have the experience with nc or mc to draw a complete comparison, but for visual / multipane file navigation within a shell, I've had good luck with ranger [1]. [1]: http://ranger.nongnu.org/ http://ranger.nongnu.org/
pinaceae 12y ago
http://www.mucommander.com/ http://www.mucommander.com/ muCommander run ons OSX, Linux, BSD, Windows as it is a lightweight Java application. especially nice on OSX as Finder comes nowhere close to its power features.

by jwr 12y ago

ajuc 12y ago

Dos navigator was better than nc. Also midnight commander has much better editor than both norton commander and dos navigator. I use mcedit instead of vi or nano and it works great.

nathell 12y ago
There also was Volkov Commander and DOS Controller. The latter is notable for managing to pack all the essential functionality of NC into a self-contained single .COM executable weighing in at less than 50KB.
Intermernet 12y ago
Xtree Gold FTW :-) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XTree http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XTree

huhtenberg 12y ago

For Windows however there's an awesome and open source Far Manager - http://www.farmanager.com http://www.farmanager.com - but I guess if you know what NC was, then you already know about FM as well :)

zura 12y ago
For Windows, I used DISCo Commander for many years, then switched to Total Commander.

mongol 12y ago

I will still mention mc because I think it is great. What does it miss? Your nc habits are applicable, it does it's job.

nathell 12y ago

Tangentially related: Peter Norton didn't write Norton Commander. The original author was John Socha; the only thing NC has in common with Norton is the name and the Peter Norton Computing brand. As to Midnight Commander: it works well enough for me. The lack of smoothness, such as function keys or ESC not working at all times, is mostly due to the quirks in Unix itself and is no fault of MC per se.

NhanH 12y ago

I remembered using Norton Commander (albeit on DOS), but I can't seem to recall what the change to the numpad is, and how is it related with NC ??

easytiger 12y ago

If there is no good replacement it is likely because it doesn't need to exist. Shells are advanced enough now to be able to do everything you need in a more purposeful and extensible way. It isn't exactly complex to write something like that these days.

jwr 12y ago
You didn't use Norton Commander, did you? No, shells are not the answer. Don't get me wrong: I love my tcsh and wouldn't give it up for the world. But certain tasks are so much better done in a commander-type tool. And I disagree: it is quite complex to write something like that. It's easy to write a dual-pane file manager wannabe. It's very difficult to write a great tool that works fast and does exactly what is needed.
- easytiger 12y ago
  What can only be done with nc? Also it isn't complex. If you have nc and you know specific things which make it better then implement something identical. It isn't magic.

ttctciyf 12y ago

I still mourn the passing of Vern Buerg's LIST.COM (and Buerg (d. 2009) himself) though the enhanced v1.81 version is still available for download if you search for it, it is 16-bit only, and would anyhow be not much use to me since I migrated to Linux 18 or so years ago. A 32bit/64bit replacement is being worked on with a beta available ( http://www.bizer.com/zblist/ http://www.bizer.com/zblist/ ) but that seems to be windows only and closed. The capabilities and performance of this tiny program were a source of wonder to me in my early dealings with the PC platform.

ralphc 12y ago
Ahhhh, list.com! Used to use that all the time! When it became list.exe I thought "well there goes the neighborhood."
- jebblue 12y ago
  Same here, used list.com all the time back in the day.
johansch 12y ago
This was one of those brilliant little and elegant software designs that solved a particular problem perfectly, and really could not be improved in a major way. It had reached its design zenith. I used it lots from the end of the 80s to the end of DOS in like 95-97.

nodata 12y ago

Can you maybe say what was so good about Norton Commander, so that those of us who didn't use it can find out a little more?

rdtsc 12y ago

I used NC but I stopped when I gave up DOS many years ago and I just never felt the need for it. Don't remember thinking "Wish I had NC here to do this...". Somehow current drag and drop file managers and command line options on Linux just do the trick. Can go through a set of things you think NC is really great at that are just complicated with these other methods?

sjackso 12y ago

I don't have the experience with nc or mc to draw a complete comparison, but for visual / multipane file navigation within a shell, I've had good luck with ranger [1]. [1]: http://ranger.nongnu.org/ http://ranger.nongnu.org/

pinaceae 12y ago

http://www.mucommander.com/ http://www.mucommander.com/ muCommander run ons OSX, Linux, BSD, Windows as it is a lightweight Java application. especially nice on OSX as Finder comes nowhere close to its power features.