{"id":7343,"date":"2026-07-02T04:31:59","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T11:31:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/?p=7343"},"modified":"2026-07-02T04:31:59","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T11:31:59","slug":"sick-of-ai-slop-former-microsoft-engineer-built-a-new-ai-less-notepad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/?p=7343","title":{"rendered":"Sick of AI Slop, Former Microsoft Engineer Built a New, AI-less Notepad"},"content":{"rendered":"

Microsoft has spent the last few years stuffing Notepad with AI tools, Markdown support, and cloud-tied credits, chipping away<\/a> at the simple, local text editor it used to be. Basic editing still works without signing in, but the AI features don’t.<\/p>\n

You need a Microsoft account just to check your remaining monthly AI credits.<\/p>\n

That’s a lot for an app whose only job used to be opening text files.<\/em> \ud83e\udd37<\/p>\n

David Plummer<\/a> (Dave<\/em>), the ex-Microsoft engineer behind the original Windows Task Manager<\/a>, just proved none of it was necessary. He has built TinyRetroPad<\/a>, a fully working Notepad clone that fits in roughly 2.5KB<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

No slop included<\/h2>\n
\"tinyretropad,
Source: <\/em><\/i>David Plummer<\/em><\/i><\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Instead of writing a text editor from scratch, Dave just borrowed the one already sitting inside the operating system. This note-taking app works by wrapping RICHEDIT50W<\/code>, a text-editing component that’s been built into Windows for years.<\/p>\n

It’s built with MASM<\/a>, an x86 assembler, then squeezed down further with Crinkler<\/a>, a compressor made for tiny Windows executables. The generated output still carries a full Notepad-style menu bar, covering the familiar options like File<\/em>, Edit<\/em>, Format<\/em>, View<\/em>, and Help<\/em>.<\/p>\n

You also get useful tools like Find and Replace<\/em>, Go To<\/em>, a font picker, word wrap, a status bar, and working print support<\/strong>. Also, at the risk of stating the obvious, there’s no telemetry plumbing in here that’s calling back home.<\/p>\n

Tracing its origin<\/h2>\n

TinyRetroPad did not appear out of thin air; Dave built it on top of Dave’s Tiny Editor<\/em> (DTE), a tiny editor made by another developer that uses the same barebones approach.<\/p>\n

DTE, in turn, grew out of tiny.asm<\/a> (also known as HelloAssembly<\/em>), a project Dave wrote years earlier himself, extending someone else’s take on his own idea.<\/p>\n

The whole codebase, however small it might be, lives on GitHub<\/a> under the Apache 2.0 License<\/strong>. Anyone can grab the code, poke at it, or shrink it down even further if they’re feeling competitive.<\/p>\n

Old news for Linux users<\/h2>\n

None of this is news if you use Linux. GNOME Text Editor<\/strong> ships as the default on GNOME, and Kate<\/strong> does the same on KDE. Neither needs an AI assistant or a cloud account to open a config file.<\/p>\n

Geany<\/strong> and Sublime Text <\/strong>(not FOSS<\/em>) have been staples of the Linux editing ecosystem for years, and Notepad Next exists specifically for people who wanted a Notepad++ alternative<\/a> without going through Wine or an unofficial Snap package.<\/p>\n

What Dave has done here is hand the Windows crowd a reminder Linux users have been living with for a long time. A text editor’s only job is to edit text, and every feature bolted on afterward is mostly bloat<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\n

Suggested Read \ud83d\udcd6:<\/strong> You Can Spend Up to $11,944 on Purism’s Librem 16<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Microsoft has spent the last few years stuffing Notepad with AI tools, Markdown support, and cloud-tied credits, chipping away at the simple, local text editor it used to be. Basic…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-rss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7343\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catbradley.io\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}