历史与人物technologizer.com
彼得·诺顿，你去了哪里？
Where have you gone, Peter Norton?
2014 — 2022，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
这篇 2014 年的文章回顾了 Peter Norton——DOS 时代传奇工具 Norton Utilities 和 Norton Commander 的缔造者——当年的辉煌与如今的淡出。文章标题发问“Peter Norton 你去了哪里”，评论区则变成了一场对 DOS 时代经典工具的集体怀旧。
为什么经久不衰：它记录了个人计算史上一个“工具英雄”的时代，每隔几年就会引发 Hacker News 用户的怀旧共鸣，也让人思考今天的软件为何少了那种贴近底层、可探索的乐趣。
HN 评论精选
Norton 工具是作者黑客启蒙的起点，DiskEdit 让他理解了 DOS 底层机制。
Peter Norton 是我 80 年代末到 90 年代初的英雄。我第一次用 Unerase 恢复被删除的文件时着了迷，后来又用 DiskEdit 深入 FAT 文件系统，弄清了 DOS 删除文件的原理（把文件名首字符标记为 ?）。由此开启了我的黑客生涯：用 DiskEdit 破解拷贝保护、找回忘记密码的文件。DiskEdit 和 SideKick 是 DOS 时代我必备的两个工具。
kschua查看英文原文
Peter Norton was my hero way back in the late 80's to early 90's. I remember the first time I used Unerase to recover a deleted file and was fascinated by it. Then I discovered DiskEdit and began poking around in the FAT system and found out more about how DOS actually deletes a file. It actually marks the first character with a ?. Thus started my hacking days. Then I used DiskEdit to bypass copy protection hacking the byte codes. DiskEdit rescued me again when I switch to DR-DOS, set passwords on my files and forgot the passwords (fwiw, it was just setting the next dozen or so bytes after the file name in the FAT to zero) Such memomories, DiskEdit and SideKick were my two must have utilities in the days of DOS
Norton Commander 至今无可替代，Midnight Commander 远不如原版。
直到今天，Norton Commander（在 UNIX 系统上）仍然没有好的替代品。别提 Midnight Commander——它功能虽多，但远不如原版流畅好用。我们这些用 Norton Commander 长大的人，看到现代键盘上重新设计的数字小键盘区，仍会摇头叹息，把按键重映射回它们本来的样子。
jwr查看英文原文
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.
Norton Utilities 的汇编代码是学 x86 编程的好教材；Peter 只是退休变老，并非消失。
反汇编并注释 Norton Utilities 是学习 x86 编程的绝佳方式，那些代码非常精炼——相当于用汇编写的 GNU coreutils。可惜文章没有真正回答标题的问题：Peter 只是老了（现在应该 70 多岁了），他几年前出席活动时看起来健康快乐。他为 PC 行业做了很多贡献，他关于 PC 底层的书也很有用。
jacquesm查看英文原文
Disassembling the Norton Utilities and annotating them was an excellent way to learn how to program X86, I'm not sure if by then Peter was still writing himself or too busy managing his growing empire but that was some pretty tight code. Think 'gnu base utils' but instead of in C a good chunk of it (if not all) was in assembler. It's a pity the article does not really answer the question in the title, Peter is simply getting older (he's probably in his 70's now). Here he is at some function a few years ago, looking happy and well: http://i558.photobucket.com/albums/ss23/Image-Gallery/norton.jpg I wish him a very long life and much joy, he's done a ton of good for the PC industry and his books on low level PC stuff were quite useful.
Norton 的书是操作系统启蒙，那个年代的 PC 更像探索工具而非办公工具。
Norton 的《IBM PC 指南》是我了解操作系统内部机制和那些神奇指令的入门书。那时的 PC 用起来更有趣——就像纯文字的 Infocom 游戏一样，是一艘驶向未知世界的探索之船，而不像今天，只是通往乏味商业桌面的一扇窗。
randcraw查看英文原文
Norton's Guide to the IBM PC was my intro to O/S internals and the magic incantations that gave them life. PCs seemed more fun to use back then, perhaps because, like the text-only Infocom games, they could be a ship of discovery sailing into worlds unknown, rather than what they've become today, a window to the humdrum desktop of a business.
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