July 2, 2026
Notepad Wars: Tiny, Petty, Glorious
Former Microsoft dev built a 2.5KB Notepad clone
Windows fans cheer a tiny old-school Notepad while roasting today’s bloated version
TLDR: Former Microsoft dev Dave Plummer released a super-small, old-school Notepad alternative meant to avoid the AI-heavy extras in today’s Windows version. Commenters loved the simplicity, mocked Microsoft’s obsession with AI, and argued over whether Plummer’s “I made Task Manager” legend is impressive history or full-on meme fuel.
A former Microsoft developer has dropped a tiny, throwback Notepad clone that fits into about 2.5KB, and the internet immediately turned it into a full-blown referendum on everything people hate about modern Windows. Dave Plummer says he built TinyRetroPad as a clean, classic text editor with no AI, no nonsense, and no feature creep—basically a love letter to the simpler Notepad many users remember from the Windows XP era. For a lot of commenters, that alone was enough to crown it a hero project.
But the real fireworks were in the reactions. One camp was gleefully dunking on Microsoft’s current Notepad, joking that the only thing missing from Plummer’s version is Copilot, because apparently every basic tool now has to come with an AI sidekick nobody asked for. Another crowd kept yelling the same fact like it was pro wrestling lore: he created Task Manager! That line showed up so hard it circled back into meme territory, with critics rolling their eyes and saying Plummer’s reputation now comes packaged with that claim whether you want it or not. Then came the nitpickers: yes, they said, TinyRetroPad is impressively small, but it leans on built-in Windows parts, so don’t pretend he handcrafted every last pixel from scratch.
And then there was the comedy gold: one commenter reminisced about trying to learn programming by opening Notepad inside Notepad and staring at the gibberish for hours. Honestly? That may be the most relatable tech origin story in the thread.
Key Points
- •Dave Plummer released TinyRetroPad, a Notepad-style text editor that the article says is roughly 2.5KB in size.
- •TinyRetroPad was forked from Dave's Tiny Editor, which was derived from HelloAssembly (tiny.asm), and the projects are written in Assembly.
- •The article says TinyRetroPad is built around the Windows API's RICHEDIT50W control and uses Crinkler compression to minimize executable size.
- •Plummer designed TinyRetroPad to resemble classic Windows XP-era Notepad and avoid newer Notepad additions such as generative AI and image embedding.
- •The article also notes that after Microsoft, Plummer founded SoftwareOnline, which was later sued by the Washington State Attorney General's Office.