Peter Norton
Peter Norton (born November 14, 1943) is an American programmer, software publisher, author, and philanthropist.
He attended Reed College and later worked on mainframes and minicomputers for companies like Boeing and Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
His first computer book, "Inside the IBM PC: Access to Advanced Features & Programming," was published in 1983.
He has a significant personal art collection and has been involved in various philanthropic endeavors, including the Peter Norton Family Foundation.
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.
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.
[4] Norton himself was named "Entrepreneur of the Year" by Arthur Young & Co. (1988 High Technology Award Winner Greater Los Angeles Region)[5] and Venture magazine.
The acquired company became a division of Symantec and was renamed Peter Norton Computing Group.
Jerry Pournelle wrote in 1985 that Norton had "remarkable talents for explaining the complex with clarity".
[11] Norton marketed his early software in person, leaving behind little pamphlets with technical notes at users group meetings and computer stores.
Norton's first computer book, Inside the IBM PC: Access to Advanced Features & Programming (Techniques),[12] was published in 1983.
The book was a popular and comprehensive guide to programming the original IBM PC platform (covering BIOS and MS-DOS system calls in great detail).
[15] 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.
"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,[24] alluding to Oak Bluff's century-old reputation as a popular summer spot among upper-class black people.
Meanwhile, he began a relationship with New York financier Gwen Adams, originally from the Virgin Islands who lived in the area.
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.[24] In 1989 Peter and Eileen Norton founded the Peter Norton Family Foundation, which gave financial support to visual and contemporary non-profit arts organizations, as well as human social services organizations.
With his first wife, Norton accumulated one of the largest modern contemporary art collections in the United States.
In 1999, Norton purchased letters written to Joyce Maynard by reclusive author J. D. Salinger for $156,500.
The Rose Art Museum received 41 artworks, ranging from prints, sculptures, photography, and other mixed media.
