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American programmer, software publisher

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 Symantec Corporation (now Gen Digital) in 1990. Norton was born in Aberdeen, Washington, and raised in Seattle. He attended Reed College and later worked on mainframes and minicomputers for companies like Boeing and Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Norton founded Peter Norton Computing in 1982, pioneering IBM PC compatible utilities software. His first computer book, "Inside the IBM PC: Access to Advanced Features & Programming," was published in 1983. By 1988, Norton Computing had grown to $15 million in revenue with 38 employees. In 1990, Norton Computing released the Norton Backup program, and in 1990, Norton sold the company to Symantec for $70 million. Norton later chaired Acorn Technologies and eChinaCash. He has a significant personal art collection and has been involved in various philanthropic endeavors, including the Peter Norton Family Foundation. He has also donated art to numerous museums and universities.

Norton was born in Aberdeen, Washington, and raised in Seattle. He attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon, and majored in math and philosophy. He graduated in 1965. Before he became involved with microcomputers, he spent a dozen years working on mainframes and minicomputers for companies including Boeing and Jet Propulsion Laboratory. His earliest low level system utilities were designed to allow mainframe programmers access to a block of RAM that IBM normally reserved for diagnostics.

When the IBM PC made its debut in 1981, Norton was among the first to buy one. After he was laid off during an aerospace industry cutback, he took up microcomputer programming to make ends meet. One day he accidentally deleted a file. Rather than re enter the data, as most would have, he decided to write a program to recover the information from the disk. His friends were delighted with the program and he developed a group of utility programs that he sold – one at a time – to user groups. In 1982, he founded Peter Norton Computing with $30,000 and an IBM computer. The company was a pioneer in IBM PC compatible utilities software. Its 1982 introduction of the Norton Utilities included Norton's UNERASE tool to retrieve erased data from MS DOS and IBM PC DOS formatted disks. Norton marketed the program (primarily on foot) through his one man software publishing company, leaving behind little pamphlets with technical notes at users group meetings and computer stores. A publisher saw his pamphlets, and saw that he could write about a technical subject. The publisher called him and asked him if he wanted to write a book. Norton's first computer book, Inside the IBM PC: Access to Advanced Features & Programming (Techniques), was published in 1983. Eight editions of this bestseller were published, the last in 1999. Norton wrote several other technical manuals and introductory computing books. He began writing monthly columns in 1983 for PC Magazine and later PC Week magazine as well, which he wrote until 1987. He soon became recognized as a principal authority on IBM personal computer technology. In 1984, Norton Computing reached $1 million in revenue, and version 3.0 of the Norton Utilities was released. Norton had three clerical people working for him. He was doing all of the software development, all of the book writing, all of the manual writing and running the business. He hired his fourth employee and first programmer, Brad Kingsbury, in July 1985. In late 1985, Norton hired a business manager to take care of the day to day operations. In 1985, Norton Computing produced the Norton Editor, a programmer's text editor created by Stanley Reifel, and Norton Guides, a terminate and stay resident program which showed reference information for assembly language and other IBM PC internals, but could also display other reference information compiled into the appropriate file format. Norton Commander, a file managing tool for DOS, was introduced in 1986. Norton Computing revenue rose to $5 million in 1986, $11 million in 1987, and $15 million in 1988. Its products won several utility awards, and it was ranked 136th on the 1988 Inc. magazine list of the 500 fastest growing private companies in America, with 38 employees. Norton himself was named "Entrepreneur of the Year" by Arthur Young & Co. (1988 High Technology Award Winner Greater Los Angeles Region) and Venture magazine. On April 12, 1989, Norton appointed Ron Posner chief executive of Norton Computing. Norton continued as chairman. Posner's goal was to rapidly grow the company into a major software vendor. Soon after his arrival, Posner hired a new president, a new chief financial officer, and added a vice president of sales. In March 1990, Norton Computing released the Norton Backup program dedicated to backing up and restoring hard disks. Norton Utilities for the Macintosh was launched in July. In 1989, Norton Computing had $25 million in sales. In August 1990, Norton sold it to Symantec for $70 million. Posner orchestrated the merger. Norton was given one third of Symantec's stock, worth about $60 million, and a seat on Symantec's board of directors. The acquired company became a division of Symantec and was renamed Peter Norton Computing Group. About one third of Norton Computing's 115 employees were laid off after the merger. The second (1988) edition, renamed The New Peter Norton Programmer's Guide to the IBM PC & PS/2, again featured the crossed arms, pink shirt cover image. Richard Wilton co authored the second edition. This was followed by the third (1993) edition of "the Norton book", renamed The Peter Norton PC Programmer's Bible, co authored with Wilton and Peter Aitken. Later editions of Peter Norton's Inside the PC, a broad brush introduction to personal computer technology, featured Norton in his crossed arm pose on the cover, wearing a white shirt.

In 2002, Acorn Technologies lured Norton out of a 10 year business hibernation. Norton has a "significant investment" in the company and serves as Chairman of Acorn's board of directors. Norton is chairman of eChinaCash, a company he founded in 2003. Posner is CEO.

Norton spent around five years in a Buddhist monastery in the San Francisco Bay area during the 1970s. In 1983, Norton married Eileen Harris, a black woman who grew up in Watts, California. They lived in the Los Angeles area where they had two children. In the summer of 1990 they vacationed on Martha's Vineyard. They enjoyed it enough to return the following year and look for a house there. They purchased Corbin House, an 1891 eight bedroom Queen Anne house in Oak Bluffs, originally built for lock and hardware industrialist, Philip Corbin. They also purchased a nearby house to be close on hand to the redesign and renovation of the main house. The renovation was completed 1994. "My children are half black, and we thought Oak Bluffs would give them an opportunity to summer around other kids like them," Norton said in a 2007 interview with Laura D. Roosevelt for Martha's Vineyard Magazine, alluding to Oak Bluff's century old reputation as a popular summer spot among upper class black people. In 2000, the couple divorced. Norton afterward lived much of the time in New York. In February 2001, a fire caused by faulty wiring destroyed the Martha's Vineyard home; Norton had it rebuilt to almost exactly as it was before the fire. Meanwhile, he began a relationship with New York financier Gwen Adams, originally from the Virgin Islands who lived in the area. The couple spends ten weeks of summer in the Corbin Norton House annually. In May 2007, they married in a church in nearby Edgartown; the ceremony was performed by their neighbor, scholar and author Henry Louis Gates Jr. California Institute of the Arts, Crossroads School (Santa Monica, California), and the Museum of Modern Art in New York (since 1999). He is a trustee emeritus of Reed College. In 2003, Norton became the chairman of the board of MoMA PS1 in Long Island City, New York. In 2004, he re joined the Whitney Museum of American Art's board after leaving it in 1998. He also serves on the executive committee of the Guggenheim Museum’s International Directors’ Council, the museum's primary acquisition committee, and on the board of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. With his first wife, Norton accumulated one of the largest modern contemporary art collections in the United States. In 1999 Norton donated $600,000 to the Signature Theatre Company (New York City) which renamed its home Off Broadway theatre at 555 West 42nd Street to "Signature Theatre Company at the Peter Norton Space." It maintained that name until the theatre moved to a new venue in 2012. In March 2015, Norton organized a second major art donation project: he donated numerous pieces from his personal art collection to museums internationally. The Rose Art Museum received 41 artworks, ranging from prints, sculptures, photography, and other mixed media. In April 2016, Norton donated an additional 100+ pieces from his personal art collection to selected university art museums, namely, 75 pieces to the University of California, Riverside ARTSblock organization and 68 pieces to Northwestern University's Block Museum.