Really don't want much, let's clean it up.
Dave W.Plummer, a former legendary Microsoft engineer who previously contributed to the development of Task Manager, Zip Folders, the 3D game Pinball Space Cadet and once told behind the FAT32 restrictions at 32GB, has launched a new project called RetroPad, a text editor for Windows that is only about 2.7KB small.
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But it can do similar basic work to Windows XP-era Notepad, which, if compared to Notepad on Windows 11 with a size of about 25 MB, RetroPad would be 9,500 times smaller.
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RetroPad is written primarily in x86 Assembly, with Plummer intending to show how small a simple text program can be if it cuts out all unnecessary things. The program has a file name called trpad.exe and opens the source code to download on GitHub under the Apache 2.0 license.
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The point that brought this project to its attention was not just the amazing small file size numbers, but also the point that many Windows users have been talking about for a while: Notepad on Windows 11 has been growing in features, losing the "open and write down" feeling that many people are familiar with the old Windows version.
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In the past, Notepad was a very simple app. Users often opened it to write short messages, paste temporary code, view Log files or edit .txt files quickly, but in Windows 11, Microsoft gradually added new features, such as tabs, automated recording systems, recovery, spelling, and AI-related capabilities like Copilot.
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These features are useful for certain groups of users, but they also give some users the impression that Notepad is becoming an app that is more complex than necessary, because what they need is not an intelligent writing aid, but a digital blank paper that opens quickly, is easy to use, and does not interfere with concentration.
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Because of this, RetroPad is seen as more like a symbol of the "program should do its own job best" concept than as a direct competitor to the newer Notepad. While it may not fully support modern capabilities, it does help point the important question of whether, in an era of ever-bigger software, all users always really need new features.
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Source: HKEPC, tomshardware















































































