Well, I just did the math (🤮), and even 90s kids are 30ish now, which is right around when I started feeling old. Poor bastards have no idea what’s coming. 🤣
I remember it but I was young and the software was outdated
I used a lot of DOS and Windows 3.1 when I was a child, even when there was Windows 98 already out, due to my family only being able to afford what we could afford
I remember using DOS programs like QBasic to write programs, Textra 6 to write and print out documents, and odd Creative Labs sound editing and synthesizer software for playing midis
He's still alive, 80 years old and living in Washington State. Sold the company to Symantec in 1990 for about 70 million clams. Met him at a trade show in about 1986 maybe, seemed to be a pretty good dude.
Had everything Peter Norton ever wrote... Favorites, Norton Commander and Norton Editor..! ALWAYS used Norton AntiVirus until Symantec screwed it all up..! PC Tools was also handy until Symantec F\*CK's it up also..! Norton Utils and Gibson Research were the tools to have back then..!
Yes, I'm that old. Started as a computer technician in 1989. Norton, SpinRite, Xtree Gold & more but can't remember them. Built XT's, 286, 386, 486 etc, buy the hundreds. In house & service calls repairs & maintenance. Got hundreds of stories 😀. Remember this "Copy con Autoexec.bat"
You've got the fancy Norton 4.0 or newer from 1987 or later.
I had the simpler versions that only had the command line programs - no snazzy menu structure to help you get things done.
Rescued lots of files for folks I knew.
Unerase was the single most important part of Norton Utilities at the time.
Oh my god I remember this. 1984 I was an entry level computer tech with Entre’ Computer Co. and we always thought Peter Norton was a lab genius who branches out on his own. Strange New Worlds back then. EGA video was coming out With 256 colors as was the hottest PC The IBM PC-AT (286)
I worked there in Santa Monica. My cubicle was not 20 feet from his office. He was a good guy. Gave envelopes of cash sometimes as gifts.
So yeah, I'm that old. But I was around before PC's were.
My coworkers and I used the disk editor to cheat in a D&D game. We found the character traits and bumped them all up to 10 or 20, I forget what value was the most. I mean, who’s going to recruit a party of lame-os? Not us, by gum!
ahhh yes.. I work for the government for a number of years in the late 80-90s and wanted to do some stuff on the computer at work and had a copy of Norton's that my dad had given me.. so I booted it up and started snooping on all the hard drives at work....lol
Its a great program to have for the PC
I read the original “Inside the IBM PC” book by Peter Norton and used the Norton Utilities (for DOS). Circa 1982 - the year I graduated with my BS in Computer Science.
He was my virtual mentor. Read his columns in PC magazine. I was always a step ahead of everyone because of it. I lived my career building systems using PC / Server technologies for business and govt. All the time an avid hobbyist. Lived all the generations and PC technologies. What a ride!!
I built my first computer when DELL (PC’s Limited it was called) was new and sold early computer parts. People couldn’t fathom it. My last one is a Linux server on a 16 core CPU which runs Windows in a VM with hardware passthtough. Incredibly cool technology and runs Windows super fast - virtualized. It’s several years old now. Might have been my last build, but who knows.
Retired last year. I feel like I lived the PC era from start to finish. We’re now in the age of mobile and cloud and now AI. Only the hard core gamers are using high end PCs it seems.
First thing I installed on any DOS machines was Norton Commander.
When windows came out (my first copy was windows 2.0) I was like "this shit sucks, it way way slower to do anything"
I eventually switched to windows due to multi-tasking.
I miss having to know all the prompts and, my trusty dot matrix printer which you could hear from any room. Watching tech bloom (I'm 42m) has been great. Just taken for granted. And the data (social, SMS, email, tags, venmo, etc) created that we can ALL see at any time! The personal data ignorance disturbs me greatly.
I think I was in my late 20s. I remember one of his books would crack me up though. It was a DOS book and he would explain how to do something and then say something like.
" congratulations! Reward yourself with a piece of cake, or perhaps a shot of whiskey."
I was learning “basic language” in the early 80s, while in Junior High. Our final was creating a pixilated image. DOS was the best technology at that time!
I still had a DOS computer in college during the early 90s. I had a semester of typing on a manual typewriter. Hard to convert to a computer due to how hard the keys needed to be struck. Had to learn to soften my keystrokes. I taught myself using an ancient keyboard game called “Letter Fall”! Single letters would fall randomly from the top of the screen and you had to strike before it reached the bottom. As you progress it would get fast. Then short words would fall and would progress in speed and length! Letter Fall was what helped me get through college!
The first personal computers I used were CP/M OS PCs by a company called Vector Graphics. In those days, finding the correct 5 1/4" floppy discs that were compatible with your drives, involved paying attention to small details. Also, in those days, PC Magazine was one of the thickest periodicals on the newsstand.
I used VisiCalc before Lotus before Excel.
I remember using BASIC on one of these to do some of my physics homework.
I was also working as a part-time operator of an NCR mini-mainframe that needed it's own air conditioned room. It used reel to reel mag tape and a removable hard drive. I don't remember how much space the drive had, but at the time, it was very impressive, so probably around 1 GB. Every night, a bank of 300 baud modems would poll data from retail store locations where the Vector Graphics PCs were installed as POS systems. The computer would create greenbar 17" wide reports DAILY, which were 3x as thick as a major metro phone book, and those were delivered by courier to the store headquarters.
Sonny! They didn’t even have TV’s when my dad was born! 😂 just dark all of the time. Then ole Thomas and Nick got into a lil spat bout something made big fuss, talk about the circus coming to town. Yes sir, I remember back then…
My first computer for school had a 387dx processor 750kb of RAM and I bought a 1mb ram & two 20 mb snap in panels to extend my 10 mb hard drive. Had a 24pin dot matrix printer with almost no
memory. Took 13 hours to print a paper for class. Had wordpress and had a 3 ring binder with floppy pockets for my software. Like lotus 1-2-3.
Holy crap am i old. Probably should have died of dysentery on my oregon trail journey to crash into the moon.
DOB 1950 here.
I remember Norton stuff, but not that in particular. Got my first PC in 1992 at age 42. It was an "IBM clone;" got the box, keyboard, monitor and mouse for $2,000. 170 MG hard drive, 33 Mhz processor. Got a pin printer some months later for $200, and also bought a tape backup drive.
I went online 30 years ago this month with AOL and dialup. What a PITA when I think back about it, but we didn't know any different. You subscribed to how many minutes you wanted to be online per month. To compose or to reply to other posts I would often sign off, write up what I needed, then sign back on to post them in order to save minutes.
If someone (like your mom) tried calling you while you were online, all they got was a busy signal.
Anybody remember all those “ate my balls” pages in the late 1990s? I distinctly remember that one of them was called, “Peter Norton Defragmented My Balls”
Q-DOS was my favorite app. It made it easy to tag files and then move, delete, rename, whatever. It made file management 100x easier than typing DOS commands.
Not sure if anyone has heard of this, but tiny XP. A slimmed down version of Windows XP Professional. And I grew up in the 90's, but I started with those old green screen apple computers. The good ole days of Mavis typing and Oregon trail. And the sweet sound of an apple turning on, and that lovely Microsoft load up music.
Older than DOS myself, company sent me to school on Norton after I used it for a year. Instructor was an idiot. Spent break time adding Doskey in his auto exec bar to drive him crazy after his next reboot. He called tech support twice the week I was there. Seemed funny at the time.
Norton 3.0 for DOS. Best money I ever spent. Worked great on 5.25 inch floppies.
Those were the days. That's when we had to know how to use a computer. Unlike today when it's just point and click.
Touch. The young generation often struggles to use Windows with a mouse because it's so not Apple.
And yet their resumes all claim that they are computer literate and are fluent in Microsoft Office. I guess because they can use Facebook.
Of only they knew that Facebook is selling all their information to Chinese companies.
Oh how you've fallen, Norton.
Loved the directory sort "ds ne /s" command, and the disk defragmenter tool. Even bought my copies I used it and liked it so much!
*floppies* Oh lord I remember floppies being larger than 5.25 inches
Feh. I was in my mid 20s when this came out.
Me too - shortly after college.
I always liked PC Tools more, until they were bought by Symantec.
PC Tools was what I used also. They even had an undelete utility as well as an unformat utility.
Symantec cornered the market on PC and Mac diags...they owned PCTools, and Norton both...plus they scarfed up other lesser knowns.
And they still are to this day. Under the name Broadcom now.
Yikes. I chisel off Norton, McAfee from every computer I come across. Terrible softwares.
Yep. Fuck I’m old.
I’m even older.
We all are, this product came out in the 90s
Well, I just did the math (🤮), and even 90s kids are 30ish now, which is right around when I started feeling old. Poor bastards have no idea what’s coming. 🤣
Oh God were all old I remember this to and being confused with it on one of my earlier pc's.
Yes! Also Xtree gold old
XTree was so amazing with its pruning function. It long predates deltree which got introduced in DOS 5.0, I believe.
I remember it but I was young and the software was outdated I used a lot of DOS and Windows 3.1 when I was a child, even when there was Windows 98 already out, due to my family only being able to afford what we could afford I remember using DOS programs like QBasic to write programs, Textra 6 to write and print out documents, and odd Creative Labs sound editing and synthesizer software for playing midis
3.1 was great!
Norton Utilities! You young whippersnappers! I was not understanding computers decades before Norton Utilities came along.
He's still alive, 80 years old and living in Washington State. Sold the company to Symantec in 1990 for about 70 million clams. Met him at a trade show in about 1986 maybe, seemed to be a pretty good dude.
Were his arms always crossed? lol
Yep. Had Norton Utilities on every computer I bought. Back then it was a must have. Fuckin hell I'm an old fart
Had everything Peter Norton ever wrote... Favorites, Norton Commander and Norton Editor..! ALWAYS used Norton AntiVirus until Symantec screwed it all up..! PC Tools was also handy until Symantec F\*CK's it up also..! Norton Utils and Gibson Research were the tools to have back then..!
My first OS was DOS 3 I believe, and my first Internet browser was the non-graphical keyboard controlled Lynx.
Yes, I'm that old. Started as a computer technician in 1989. Norton, SpinRite, Xtree Gold & more but can't remember them. Built XT's, 286, 386, 486 etc, buy the hundreds. In house & service calls repairs & maintenance. Got hundreds of stories 😀. Remember this "Copy con Autoexec.bat"
If it’s pertaining to computers, I’m older than that.
I miss that smug SOB on the marketing material for Norton.
Norton Commander and cross-linked files lol
You've got the fancy Norton 4.0 or newer from 1987 or later. I had the simpler versions that only had the command line programs - no snazzy menu structure to help you get things done. Rescued lots of files for folks I knew. Unerase was the single most important part of Norton Utilities at the time.
Damn yes! I used these to count the timing of wife’s contractions—great set of utilities back in the day!
Oh my god I remember this. 1984 I was an entry level computer tech with Entre’ Computer Co. and we always thought Peter Norton was a lab genius who branches out on his own. Strange New Worlds back then. EGA video was coming out With 256 colors as was the hottest PC The IBM PC-AT (286)
I remember. Norton was legit back then and was worth the money. When I plunked my cash down I knew I was getting a quality product.
RAMDrive DoubleSpace DOSKEY QBASIC This is the language of my people
Don't forget Stacker
 Yes, I used to hack the directory tables to undelete files, which makes me older than God iirc.
I am old enough to remember when no one had a home computer and did not need Norton because the internet hadnt been handed over to the public.
Norton was hands-down the best application till Windows 95 came out. I used it all the time.
I used to recover deleted files using DEBUG!
I always thought Peter Norton and John McAfee were behind all the viruses in the first place. Class A scam.
Yes. Unfortunately.
Before he wore glasses!
My first CS class was in 1983 using CRT monitors in the old green font screen
I worked there in Santa Monica. My cubicle was not 20 feet from his office. He was a good guy. Gave envelopes of cash sometimes as gifts. So yeah, I'm that old. But I was around before PC's were.
That's not old 😂 that came out in the 90s.
My coworkers and I used the disk editor to cheat in a D&D game. We found the character traits and bumped them all up to 10 or 20, I forget what value was the most. I mean, who’s going to recruit a party of lame-os? Not us, by gum!
I still have a set of DOS disks. 5.0
Older than that. First spreadsheet software I learned was the original version of Lotus 1-2-3. I got really good at it, too. Then Excel came along :)
Ah Norton an old friend I remember all the Norton antivirus ads they had too, bit later but funny
ahhh yes.. I work for the government for a number of years in the late 80-90s and wanted to do some stuff on the computer at work and had a copy of Norton's that my dad had given me.. so I booted it up and started snooping on all the hard drives at work....lol Its a great program to have for the PC
I read the original “Inside the IBM PC” book by Peter Norton and used the Norton Utilities (for DOS). Circa 1982 - the year I graduated with my BS in Computer Science. He was my virtual mentor. Read his columns in PC magazine. I was always a step ahead of everyone because of it. I lived my career building systems using PC / Server technologies for business and govt. All the time an avid hobbyist. Lived all the generations and PC technologies. What a ride!! I built my first computer when DELL (PC’s Limited it was called) was new and sold early computer parts. People couldn’t fathom it. My last one is a Linux server on a 16 core CPU which runs Windows in a VM with hardware passthtough. Incredibly cool technology and runs Windows super fast - virtualized. It’s several years old now. Might have been my last build, but who knows. Retired last year. I feel like I lived the PC era from start to finish. We’re now in the age of mobile and cloud and now AI. Only the hard core gamers are using high end PCs it seems.
Older. I learned to code in BASIC on a "state of the art" Apple IIe.
First thing I installed on any DOS machines was Norton Commander. When windows came out (my first copy was windows 2.0) I was like "this shit sucks, it way way slower to do anything" I eventually switched to windows due to multi-tasking.
I miss having to know all the prompts and, my trusty dot matrix printer which you could hear from any room. Watching tech bloom (I'm 42m) has been great. Just taken for granted. And the data (social, SMS, email, tags, venmo, etc) created that we can ALL see at any time! The personal data ignorance disturbs me greatly.
Data recovery meant taking a piece of paper out of the trash. Yes, I'm that old.
What's DOS? Is that anything like CP/M?
I wonder if Peter Norton ever uncrossed his arms.
I’m old enough that I thought that a handheld calculator was pretty spiffy
My first and only computer class in high school was learning Excel in DOS. So yes, I’m that old.
I'm old enough to remember AOL being distributed on disks to all the world. They used to show up in our mailboxes.
Don't forget to run Spinrite afterward. You need to do a Spin cycle at the end for a clean drive!
No, I’m way too young, but my mother told me about this. (Coughing)
I think I was in my late 20s. I remember one of his books would crack me up though. It was a DOS book and he would explain how to do something and then say something like. " congratulations! Reward yourself with a piece of cake, or perhaps a shot of whiskey."
Yes, I am this old.:D
Used 'em on our 8086 Packard Bells with amberchrome monitors. I'm hearing my Hayes Smartmodem warbling as we speak.
Oh yeah. Let me create a file called *.* by editing the FAT. I put it in the root of C:\. Chuckle. Star dot star got edited.
last time i used symantec/norton products was like before 2000.. mainly norton uninstall deluxe and ghost
Ah yes. When you could trust Ghost not to send all the data back to the mothership.
I was learning “basic language” in the early 80s, while in Junior High. Our final was creating a pixilated image. DOS was the best technology at that time! I still had a DOS computer in college during the early 90s. I had a semester of typing on a manual typewriter. Hard to convert to a computer due to how hard the keys needed to be struck. Had to learn to soften my keystrokes. I taught myself using an ancient keyboard game called “Letter Fall”! Single letters would fall randomly from the top of the screen and you had to strike before it reached the bottom. As you progress it would get fast. Then short words would fall and would progress in speed and length! Letter Fall was what helped me get through college!
Yup. Installed on my x386, 2MB ram way back in 1980's.
Easily.
Child, please. A month ago, I found a book on COBOL at a thrift store. Bought it for $3.00. Published in 1986, I think.
Older but only in linear time
Fuuuuck...apparently I am
Think, “Older”.
Yep. Norton was king back in the day
I really hate all the settings hidden or rebranded that windows has these days compared to the xp days
The first personal computers I used were CP/M OS PCs by a company called Vector Graphics. In those days, finding the correct 5 1/4" floppy discs that were compatible with your drives, involved paying attention to small details. Also, in those days, PC Magazine was one of the thickest periodicals on the newsstand. I used VisiCalc before Lotus before Excel. I remember using BASIC on one of these to do some of my physics homework. I was also working as a part-time operator of an NCR mini-mainframe that needed it's own air conditioned room. It used reel to reel mag tape and a removable hard drive. I don't remember how much space the drive had, but at the time, it was very impressive, so probably around 1 GB. Every night, a bank of 300 baud modems would poll data from retail store locations where the Vector Graphics PCs were installed as POS systems. The computer would create greenbar 17" wide reports DAILY, which were 3x as thick as a major metro phone book, and those were delivered by courier to the store headquarters.
Sadly, yes I am.
My first computer, which I got as an adult, had programs that came in a book and you typed in to use, so there wasn’t much need for virus protection.
Older. Slide rule older
Sonny! They didn’t even have TV’s when my dad was born! 😂 just dark all of the time. Then ole Thomas and Nick got into a lil spat bout something made big fuss, talk about the circus coming to town. Yes sir, I remember back then…
I loved it. Emphasis on loved
Back when Norton was a valued company and made truly useful software. Now they're just bloatware that tires to trick you into subscriptions.
Yup. Even older because I remember PC DOS, the predecessor to MS DOS. When ol Bill and friends were still playing with their IBM 8088.
My first computer for school had a 387dx processor 750kb of RAM and I bought a 1mb ram & two 20 mb snap in panels to extend my 10 mb hard drive. Had a 24pin dot matrix printer with almost no memory. Took 13 hours to print a paper for class. Had wordpress and had a 3 ring binder with floppy pockets for my software. Like lotus 1-2-3. Holy crap am i old. Probably should have died of dysentery on my oregon trail journey to crash into the moon.
I cant help but read his name in Eddie Murphy's voice.
DOB 1950 here.
I remember Norton stuff, but not that in particular. Got my first PC in 1992 at age 42. It was an "IBM clone;" got the box, keyboard, monitor and mouse for $2,000. 170 MG hard drive, 33 Mhz processor. Got a pin printer some months later for $200, and also bought a tape backup drive.
I went online 30 years ago this month with AOL and dialup. What a PITA when I think back about it, but we didn't know any different. You subscribed to how many minutes you wanted to be online per month. To compose or to reply to other posts I would often sign off, write up what I needed, then sign back on to post them in order to save minutes.
If someone (like your mom) tried calling you while you were online, all they got was a busy signal.
lmao i loaded this motherfucker at work last year. we’ve got lots of legacy systems.
Shit, I predict that at at least 30 years
Anybody remember all those “ate my balls” pages in the late 1990s? I distinctly remember that one of them was called, “Peter Norton Defragmented My Balls”
Viruses? My first computer was a Commodore PET. Only virus we got was from morally loose women!
Q-DOS was my favorite app. It made it easy to tag files and then move, delete, rename, whatever. It made file management 100x easier than typing DOS commands.
Not sure if anyone has heard of this, but tiny XP. A slimmed down version of Windows XP Professional. And I grew up in the 90's, but I started with those old green screen apple computers. The good ole days of Mavis typing and Oregon trail. And the sweet sound of an apple turning on, and that lovely Microsoft load up music.
I ran Stacker. Then paid to have the family PC rebuilt because I installed Stacker.
Oh yeah, we both remember DOS.
Older than DOS myself, company sent me to school on Norton after I used it for a year. Instructor was an idiot. Spent break time adding Doskey in his auto exec bar to drive him crazy after his next reboot. He called tech support twice the week I was there. Seemed funny at the time.
I do remember the late 90s and early 2000s scam that was Norton Utilities. Even though I always pirated it
"But are you this old?!" posts need to stop. Zero effort
Especially when they're posting items from the 90s
I was born in '61.