Modern reality is impossible to imagine without computer technology. The development of information technology has changed the world and everyday life of millions of people. Peter Norton was at the forefront of creating computer programs.
Motive
To accommodate first-generation electronic computers, specially equipped rooms were required. Such complexes were used by large companies to solve large-scale problems. In the early 70s there were prototypes of personal computers that were placed on a desk. Peter Norton, a mathematician by profession, used a personal device in his professional career. Being one of the first users of such a computer, he faced certain inconveniences and difficulties in work.
Norton worked as a programmer in a large aircraft company Boeing. When developing another program, he accidentally deleted an important file that was located on the hard drive. An unpleasant situation with great efforts managed to survive. As it turned out, the information did not disappear completely, but moved to another segment of the storage device. Peter set himself the task of finding an effective method for automatically recovering accidentally lost data. As a result of targeted actions, he wrote a program that allows you to find lost data.
Starting conditions
The future programmer and entrepreneur was born on November 14, 1943 in an ordinary American family. Parents at that time lived in the small town of Aberdeen, Washington. After graduating from high school, Peter graduated from the Mathematics Department of the University of California at Berkeley. By that time, literate programmers in the labor market were in high demand. Programs were created for large computers. A professional career in a large company was successful. When personal computers such as the IBM PC appeared on the market, Norton began using it for work. At that time, an unfortunate incident occurred with the loss of information.
When Norton created a program to recover lost information, computer users reacted to it without much attention. However, after a few months, when computers began to be freely sold in stores, the attitude changed. Almost every user of a personal computer experienced unpleasant sensations, involuntarily deleting the necessary data. After that, doubts about the need for the UnErase utility disappeared like morning fog. This product was the first in the market of utility programs called utilities.
