The history of development of Norton Commander (2011)

I owe Norton a lot of joy for bringing orthodox file managers (the ones with two panes) and I can't live without them. They make file managing so comfortable compared to stuff like Windows Explorer or Nautilus (not saying they are bad though, I just prefer two panes).

Nowadays I mostly use clones like Midnight Commander, Krusader and Double Commander, and I used Worker (a clone of a clone, this time a clone of Directory Opus for the Amiga) for a long time before settling on Krusader as main one. The genealogy of these file managers is kind of fascinating.

Anyone else a fan?

I use one of its descendants, Total Commander, every day. It's one of the few applications I actually paid for, it's that critical for my daily computer usage.

What I love about it is that you get lifetime free updates.

I suspect that the author got setup for life selling it and instead of cashing out and selling it to some bigcorp (who undoubtedly would've changed the free update policy) he decided to keep the updates free forever.

I came to Unix from an MS-DOS background, where I used Norton Commander a lot. I used to keep an older version of NC – which would fit on a floppy – with me at all times. But on Unix, I ended up not using any of the clones; not even Midnight Commander, which was a key-for key clone, and should have fit me perfectly. It turns out you, or at least I, just don’t use Unix the same way as I did MS-DOS. When I need to manipulate files in any quantity, I use Emacs and its dired-mode.

See especially the “wdired-change-to-wdired-mode” command, now available on the usual “toggle read-only mode” keystroke C-x C-q – it’s magical.

(This has been an 11 year old repost of <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9474384>.)

Growing up in the 90s, Norton Commander had this aura of mystery around it.

A lot of people I've met believed that it was a separate operating system. For example, I remember asking a friend "Did your computer had DOS in the beginning?" and he replied "Even worse, Norton."

My mom found me once aimlessly using my cousin's computer and she was shocked to discover I had opened Norton Commander (unintentionally of course) and told me "you know if you delete that, you'll delete all programs in the system" (passing over the absurdity of the claim itself, even then I didn't understand how opening it will make it more probable to delete it).

Not being Anglophone, even the name "Norton" sounded a bit dangerous, like something radioactive I guess.

Anyway afterwards when we got our own computer I pieced together what Norton actually was and the aura disappeared.

Norton Commander set me on the path to building Gusco: https://intestinate.com/gusco/

NC tribute theme included.

Give it a shot if you wish Midnight Commander felt closer to Total Commander.

I remember when Total Commander (originally Windows Commander) arrived and immediately made NC on Windows obsolete.

Symantec really knew how to trash a good product.

While I haven't had to deal with Windows professionally for a very long time, I still miss the feel of Total Commander and DOS NC.

I am always amazed looking at tools like Norton Commander or Visicalc that invented a ton of concepts we now view as totally normal and just as the way things are. Same for a lot of programming concepts. The world could look totally different if some people had been better at selling their ideas.

I was an Amiga kid, so Directory Opus was my Norton Commander. I still use Directory Opus on Windows to this day

Does anyone remember their disk deframenter?

I had Gemini implement a simulation:

https://chrissherlock.github.io/operating-system/week10-file...