VOGONS

40th anniversary of the Norton Commander

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First post, by Grzyb

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What can be even more important than the upcoming 250th anniversary of the United States of America?

Of course - the 40th anniversary of one of the most important pieces of software in history!

Precisely speaking, The Norton Commander, Version 1.00 files are dated May 15, 1986:

The attachment nc100.png is no longer available

A truly AWESOME program, based on brilliant observation that there's so many operations with TWO arguments - source and destination...
copy, move, compare, convert, create archive, extract archive...
It's so natural to have TWO panels for such operations!

And at the same time - all the power of the CLI is always at hand!

So, while the original product is long dead, the idea is very alive in countless clones for modern systems - especially Midnight Commander and FAR.

And we have received a bunch of anniversary gifts...
Something sought-after for great many years: NC-like FTP clients for DOS - FTP2P and FTP4DOS.
Also, the source code for Volkov Commander - a program incredibly compact, yet powerful, a true masterpiece of assembly programming!

Big thanks to all the authors of the original and the modern stuff, especially John Socha, Peter Norton, Miguel de Icaza, Eugene Roshal, Vsevolod Volkov, Stefan Tanurkov, Brian Havard, Radozd, Projanglez, and - again - John Socha!

In 2003, I voted in favour of joining the European Union. However, due to later developments - especially the restrictions on cash usage - I have withdrawn my support. DOWN WITH THE EU!

Reply 1 of 8, by MagefromAntares

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Hi,

So very true, and NC does deserve a praise on its anniversary.

The progenitor to two panel file managers, so many of the current generation of computer users are oblivious to it's influence, even on modern systems its spiritual successors are very useful, I still use Midnight Commander on Linux although the advanced CLI capabilities and tools of Linux made some file operations on the CLI quicker than even starting MC, it is still an extremely useful program that we wouldn't have without Norton Commander.

"A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it." - Dune

Reply 2 of 8, by Joseph_Joestar

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Happy Anniversary!

I started using Norton Commander with my very first PC which came with DOS 6.22 and Win 3.11. After upgrading to Win95, I switched over to Windows Commander (aka Total Commander) and have been using that ever since. It significantly increases my productivity, and is one of the staple utilities that I install on every Windows PC in my collection.

My retro builds

Reply 3 of 8, by Jo22

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🥳🎂

"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel

//My video channel//

Reply 4 of 8, by sledge

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I’ve always preferred a) Volkov for its minimalism, and b) the Czech software M602 for its solid range of additional features. But Norton is, of course, a legend. So, happy birthday! 😀

And just for interest - my mouse pad 😀 With several classic CPUs...

doshaven.eu / high-voltage.cz

Reply 5 of 8, by Big Pink

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I'm crossing my arms in non trademark infringing tribute.

I thought IBM was born with the world

Reply 6 of 8, by Crazyeights

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I still have my original Ghisler Windows Commander floppy disk with wincmd.key. The old key still works with the current version of Total Commander. What does anyone think of Symantec's Windows Commander?

Reply 7 of 8, by Grzyb

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Crazyeights wrote on 2026-06-28, 02:32:

What does anyone think of Symantec's Windows Commander?

Was there even such a thing?
Or you mean Norton Commander for Windows?

In 2003, I voted in favour of joining the European Union. However, due to later developments - especially the restrictions on cash usage - I have withdrawn my support. DOWN WITH THE EU!

Reply 8 of 8, by bofh.fromhell

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Ah the famous Norton Commander.
The tantalizing name that for a lad coming from the Amiga could only be a motorcycle game!
A taunting box nestling among other boring software from its shelf above the PS/1 I was not allowed to use.
And when I finally managed to sneak some time on the computer excitedly typing "NC" I was perplexed, surely this it just the settings menu for the expected game?
Alas no, it finally dawned to me I had been tricked by the name.
But even a young lad soon realized it was something amazing, perhaps even better then just another game?
And as the restrictions on the "real computer" got loosened "NC" just kept on doing the work.
Pretty soon other computers were lugged from friends and NC provided an easy albeit slow way to copy between them via a null modem cable.
No more struggling with floppy's and confusing PKZIP commands to spread software over several disks.

But it was not to last forever.
As the computers got more powerful they could soon run "real" operating systems.
And pretty soon we had a fairly large COAX LAN with everyone trying to access each-others drives at the same time slowly turning the room boiling hot.

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