John Socha
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John Socha-Leialoha is a software developer best known for creating Norton Commander, a very popular file managing tool for DOS.
John grew up in the woods of Wisconsin, earned a PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Wisconsin, and his PhD in Applied Physics from Cornell University. He now lives in Seattle with his wife and son.
[edit] Independent work
In the early days of the IBM PC, John Socha wrote a column for the now defunct magazine Softalk, where he published such programs as ScrnSave, KbdBuffer (extending the keyboard buffer), and WhereIs (finding files on a hard disk).
ScrnSave was the first screensaver ever created. John Socha also coined the term screen saver. The built-in screensaver (night sky with stars) was one of the most distinctive features of Norton Commander, along with the famous two-panel blue screen.
When Peter Norton Computing was acquired by Symantec in 1990, John Socha left to found his own company, Socha Computing Inc. The new company developed the Microsoft Plus! add-on pack for Windows 95, and also developed screensavers for Windows 98. In August 1997 Socha Computing was acquired by Asymetrix.
Since October 2003, John has devoted himself to his long-standing hobby of model railroading. He is co-founder of New Rail Models.
In December 2004, John Socha co-authored Optimize Your Pocket PC Development with the .NET Compact Framework for MSDN Magazine.
[edit] Norton Commander
John Socha described his work on NC:
- I started work on what became known as the Norton Commander in the fall of 1984 while I was still a graduate student in Applied Physics at Cornell University. The first versions were entirely in assembly language, but that was too time-consuming, so I soon switched to a blend of C and assembly language at a time when most "real programmers" wouldn't touch C.
- At the time I called it Visual DOS, with the abbreviation of VDOS instead of the usual two-letter abbreviations used at the time. The program itself was inspired by several things coming together. I had a contract to write some books for Microsoft Press and actually spent some time in Bellevue, WA working on site. I'd take two months off from graduate school and write a book.
- The second book was to be a book of small utility programs like I used to write for Softalk Magazine (such as whereis, scrnsave, etc.), but I never finished writing the book because one small utility took on a life of its own.
John Socha continued work on his VDOS program after joining Peter Norton Computing as their first director of research and development. In 1986 the software product was released under the name of Norton Commander.
NC wasn't the only product of Peter Norton Computing that John Socha worked on. He also led the development team for the Norton Utilities for the Macintosh computer platform.
John has written a number of technical books with Peter Norton, including the best selling Peter Norton's Assembly Language Book (ISBN 0-13-661901-0).
Please do not confuse this John Socha with John Stewart Socha (often using the name "John Stewart"). John S. Socha is the author of 10+ audio tutorials such as "The DOS Tape," "What is Windows?" and "How To Buy Your First Digital Camera." He has done work for IBM, Lexar and others. John S. Socha also has lived in Wisconsin and been mentioned in national media, such as WIRED, which adds to the confusion. The two "Johns" are working at the opposite end of the computer spectrum. See www.acpress.com for more details on John S. Socha.
[edit] References
- ↑ Nikolai Bezroukov (2005). The History of Development of Norton Commander (NC line of OFMs)
- Co-authored Teach Yourself... Visual Basic 5 for MIS Press with Dan Rahmel and Devra Hall.
