--- title: "The History of Development of Norton Commander" url: https://daily.dev/posts/the-history-of-development-of-norton-commander-oxv8btq2s source_url: https://softpanorama.org/OFM/Paradigm/Ch03/norton_commander.shtml type: article source: "Two Stop Bits" published: 2026-07-04T11:05:17.792Z updated: 2026-07-04T11:05:37.760Z reading_time: 109 upvotes: 0 comments: 0 language: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # The History of Development of Norton Commander **[Two Stop Bits](https://daily.dev/sources/twostopbits)** · 109 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A detailed historical account of Norton Commander's development from 1984 to 1999, covering its origins as VDOS written by John Socha at Cornell University, the founding and growth of Peter Norton Computing, the competitive landscape with XTree, and version-by-version evolution from NC 1.0 through NC 5.51. Includes firsthand quotes from John Socha, Brad Kingsbury, and Jeff Johnson (XTree), technical details of early distributions, and the cultural impact Norton Commander had in the former USSR and Eastern Europe where it became synonymous with DOS itself. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [New File Manager Is C64’s Answer To Norton Commander](https://daily.dev/posts/new-file-manager-is-c64-s-answer-to-norton-commander-ztipvtthu) · Hackaday · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/the-history-of-development-of-norton-commander-oxv8btq2s)