John Socha-Leialoha (born 1958) is a software developer best known for creating

Norton Commander Norton Commander (NC) is a discontinued prototypical orthodox file manager (OFM), written by John Socha and released by Peter Norton Computing (later acquired in 1990 by the Symantec corporation). NC provides a text-based user interface for ...

, the first

orthodox file manager A file manager or file browser is a computer program that provides a user interface to manage files and folders. The most common operations performed on files or groups of files include creating, opening (e.g. viewing, playing, editing or pr ...

. The original Norton Commander was written for

DOS DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems. DOS may also refer to: Computing * Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel * Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicat ...

. Over the years, Socha's design for file management has been extended and cloned many times. John grew up in the woods of

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

, earned a BS degree in Electrical Engineering from

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United Stat ...

, and his PhD in Applied Physics from

Cornell University Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to tea ...

. He now lives in

Bellevue, Washington Bellevue ( ) is a city in the Eastside region of King County, Washington, United States, located across Lake Washington from Seattle. It is the third-largest city in the Seattle metropolitan area and has variously been characterized as ...

with his wife. His son, John Avi, is a graduate of the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seattl ...

. Starting in September 2010, John began working at

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

officially.

Independent work

In the early days of the IBM PC, John Socha wrote a column for the now defunct magazine ''

Softalk ''Softalk'' () was an American magazine of the early 1980s that focused on the Apple II computer. Published from September 1980 through August 1984, it featured articles about hardware and software associated with the Apple II platform and the p ...

'', 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 A screensaver (or screen saver) is a computer program that blanks the display screen or fills it with moving images or patterns when the computer has been idle for a designated time. The original purpose of screensavers was to prevent phosphor ...

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 two-panel blue screen. When

Peter Norton Computing Peter Norton Computing, Inc., was a software company founded by Peter Norton. The first and best known software package it produced was Norton Utilities. Another successful software package was Norton Commander, especially the DOS version. In 1990 ...

was acquired by Symantec in 1990, John Socha left to found his own company, ''Socha Computing Inc.'' The new company developed the

Microsoft Plus! Microsoft Plus! is a discontinued commercial operating system enhancement product by Microsoft. The last edition is the Plus! SuperPack, which includes an assortment of screensavers, themes, and games, as well as multimedia applications. The Micr ...

add-on pack for

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturi ...

, and also developed screensavers for

Windows 98 Windows 98 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of Microsoft Windows operating systems. The second operating system in the 9x line, it is the successor to Windows 95, and was released to ...

. In July 1997 Socha Computing was acquired by

Asymetrix SumTotal Systems, Inc. is a software company based in Gainesville, Florida that provides human resource management software and services to private and public sector organizations. The company uses multiple cloud-based channels, including softw ...

. Since October 2003, John has devoted himself to his long-standing hobby of

model railroad Railway modelling (UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland) or model railroading (US and Canada) is a hobby in which rail transport systems are modelled at a reduced scale. The scale models include locomotives, rolling stock, streetcars, t ...

ing. He is co-founder of New Rail Models.newrailmodels.com
/ref> In December 2004, John Socha co-authore
Optimize Your Pocket PC Development with the .NET Compact Framework
for ''

MSDN Magazine Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) was the division of Microsoft responsible for managing the firm's relationship with developers and testers, such as hardware developers interested in the operating system (OS), and software developers developing ...

''.

Norton Commander

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. Socha also led the development team of

Norton Utilities Norton Utilities is a utility software suite designed to help analyze, configure, optimize and maintain a computer. The latest version of the original series of Norton Utilities is Norton Utilities 16 for Windows XP/Vista/7/8 was released 26 Oc ...

for the

Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...

computer platform. John has written a number of technical books published under the

Peter Norton Peter Norton (born November 14, 1943) is an American programmer, software publisher, author, and philanthropist. He is best known for the computer programs and books that bear his name and portrait. Norton sold his software business to Syman ...

name, including the best-selling ''Peter Norton's Assembly Language Book'' ().

Other work

John has many other projects including controllers for train models and mobile application design. John maintains
YouTube channel
on which he discusses small scale

CNC machining Numerical control (also computer numerical control, and commonly called CNC) is the automated control of machining tools (such as drills, lathes, mills, grinders, routers and 3D printers) by means of a computer. A CNC machine processes a ...

and injection molding fabrication techniques. John is a private pilot and owns Daisy, a plane featured in books by Richard Bach.

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 MIS or mis may refer to: Science and technology * Management information system * Marine isotope stage, stages of the Earth's climate * Maximal independent set, in graph theory * Metal-insulator-semiconductor, e.g., in MIS capacitor * Minimally in ...

with

Dan Rahmel Dan Rahmel (born 1969) is an American author best known for his work relating to Visual Basic and database servers. Rahmel first began work as a writer for various magazines including DBMS, American Programmer, and Internet Advisor. He co-authored ...

and Devra Hall.

External links

John Socha-Leialoha's BlogJohn Socha-Leialoha blog at Microsoft
{{DEFAULTSORT:Socha, John 1958 births Living people Computer programmers University of Wisconsin–Madison College of Engineering alumni Cornell University alumni