John Socha-Leialoha (born 1958) is a

software developer Software development is the process of designing and Implementation, implementing a software solution to Computer user satisfaction, satisfy a User (computing), user. The process is more encompassing than Computer programming, programming, wri ...

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 NortonLifeLock, Symantec corporation). NC provides a text-based user i ...

, 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 p ...

. The original Norton Commander was written for

DOS DOS (, ) is a family of disk-based operating systems for IBM PC compatible computers. The DOS family primarily consists of IBM PC DOS and a rebranded version, Microsoft's MS-DOS, both of which were introduced in 1981. Later compatible syste ...

. 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 U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...

, earned a BS degree in Electrical Engineering from

University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...

, and his PhD in Applied Physics from

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

. He now lives in

Bellevue, Washington Bellevue ( ) is a city in the Eastside (King County, Washington), 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 the f ...

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

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

. Starting in September 2010, John began working at

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

officially.

Independent work

In the early days of the

IBM PC The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the List of IBM Personal Computer models, IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible ''de facto'' standard. Released on ...

, 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 s ...

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. The com ...

was acquired by

Symantec Symantec may refer to: * Gen Digital, an American consumer software company formerly known as Symantec * Symantec Security, a brand of enterprise security software purchased by Broadcom Broadcom Inc. is an American multinational corporation, ...

in 1990, John Socha left to found his own company, Socha Computing Inc. The 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 Mic ...

add-on pack for

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft and the first of its Windows 9x family of operating systems, released to manufacturing on July 14, 1995, and generally to retail on August 24, 1995. Windows 95 merged ...

, 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. It was the second operating system in the 9x line, as the successor to Windows 95. It was Software ...

, and two

minigames A minigame (also spelled mini game and mini-game, sometimes called a subgame or microgame) is a short game often contained within another video game. A minigame contains different gameplay elements and is often smaller or more simplistic than th ...

for the 1996 video game ''

Muppets Inside ''The Muppet CD-ROM: Muppets Inside'' is a 1996 video game based on The Muppets franchise produced by Starwave for Windows. The title is a play on Intel's advertising slogan, "Intel Inside". The game's plot consists of several Muppets characters g ...

''. In August 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 soft ...

. 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 Model building, modelled at a reduced Scale (ratio), scale. The scale models include locomotives ...

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 Research and development (R&D or R+D), known in some countries as OKB, experiment and design, is the set of innovative activities undertaken by corporations or governments in developing new services or products. R&D constitutes the first stage ...

. 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, released 26 Octob ...

for the

Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...

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 Symante ...

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 Computer numerical control (CNC) or CNC machining is the automated control of machine tools by a computer. It is an evolution of numerical control (NC), where machine tools are directly managed by data storage media such as punched cards or ...

and

injection molding Injection moulding (U.S. spelling: injection molding) is a manufacturing process for producing parts by injecting molten material into a mould, or mold. Injection moulding can be performed with a host of materials mainly including metals (for ...

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

Richard Bach Richard David Bach (born June 23, 1936) is an American writer. He has written numerous flight-related works of fiction and non-fiction. His works include '' Jonathan Livingston Seagull'' (1970) and '' Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Mes ...

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.

External links

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