Peter Norton

Creator of Norton Utilities, Norton is recognized as a pioneer in DOS-based utilities software.

Before discovering microcomputers, Norton 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 some previous RAM that IBM normally reserved for diagnostics.

In 1982, he founded Peter Norton Computing with $30,000 and an IBM computer. Its 1982 introduction of the Norton Utilities included Norton's popular UNERASE tool to retrieve erased data from DOS disks.

By August 1990, he sold his $25 million (yearly sales) Santa Monica, California-based company to Symantec, which continues to use his name and image on its products.