Former Microsoft dev built a 2.5KB Notepad clone
sheelagay
27 points
22 comments
July 02, 2026
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Discussion Highlights (9 comments)
munk-a
Ah, but does it have a copilot integration? I've heard users don't want tools without copilot integrations.
sonixier
Did you know that HE CREATED TASK MANAGER??
gigel82
Sure, but it's basically a very thin wrapper on the built-in RichEdit control, with some added menus and niceties. Don't get me wrong, it's hundreds of times better than whatever UWP abomination they call Notepad in Windows 11 nowadays (with logins and AI features), but it's not an actual text viewer / editor from scratch.
Tiberium
This person's whole marketing seems to be based on "I built Task Manager", so much that it has become a meme, see e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1sl5nv4/task_... (also apparently there's some dark history involved)
deathanatos
When I was younger, I decided I wanted to learn how to write games. I decided I needed to start simple, though, and I thought NOTEPAD.EXE was about the simplest thing out there. (This was in Windows 3.1.) So to learn how NOTEPAD.EXE worked, I opened NOTEPAD.EXE in NOTEPAD.EXE, and spent several hours trying to decipher the symbols' meanings. My first attempt at coding was … unsuccessful.
pdntspa
This is a fork of another tiny text editor written by someone else. So I wouldn't say they 'built' it Honestly this headline reeks of social media clickbait
sachinjoseph
This former Microsoft dev also created a business that scammed people money in the early 2000s by letting them think that their computer is affected by malware: https://www.atg.wa.gov/news/news-releases/attorney-general-s...
andai
See the author's video here: The Challenge: Can we build Notepad in 3K in assembly language? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OG91c7xsNMc
InvisibleUp
I’m not sure why I would want to use this over WINE Notepad, which seems a lot more stable and well-coded.