Norton Guides

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Norton Guides were a product family sold by Peter Norton Computing. The guides were written in 1985 by Warren Woodford for the x86 Assembly Language, C, BASIC, and Forth languages and made available to users via a TSR program that integrated with programming language editors on IBM PC type computers. This appears to be the first example of a commercial product where programming reference information was integrated into the software development environment.

The concept of providing "information at your fingertips", as he called it, via a TSR program was a signature technology developed by Woodford in 1980 and used in other programs he created in that era including MathStar, WordFinder/SynonymFinder and a TEMPEST WWMCCS workstation developed for Sytematics General Corporation. Warren's Guides, aka the Norton Guides, were the last application of this type written by Woodford.