Dave's Tiny Editor (DTE) v2.1.1

A working Windows text editor in 967 bytes. To use DTE, drag and drop a file onto dte.exe.

Update: Some people correctly pointed out that DTE and TRPad were both grabbing 500mb of RAM at runtime. There were two errors causing this:

1. The DTE code was literally asking for 500mb to be reserved via push 07FFFFFFEh. That is because I mistakenly set it that way thinking it allowed up to 500mb files. Those lines of code were removed.
   
   
2. The builder build.bat needed to have /hashsize:# added for Crinkler. Here we're setting it to 11, giving a final exe of 967 bytes and DTE runs in 12mb of RAM. This is adjustable. For example, /hashsize:1 brings RAM usage down to 2mb and increases the exe size to about 985 bytes. Any /hashsize:# settings higher than 11 or so drastically increases RAM usage with little exe size reduction (about 1 byte).
   

New! June 2026: DTE has in collaboration with Dave Plummer been expanded into TinyRetroPad, a full-featured Notepad work-alike editor in 2.62 kb! You can find TRPad here and a video about it here.

Compiles with: MASM and Crinkler.

DTE is an extension of tiny.asm HelloAssembly by Dave Plummer https://github.com/davepl. The idea is to make a working windowed text editor in the sub-1KB category. It uses Crinkler https://github.com/runestubbe/Crinkler compression at build time.

DTE is basically a wrapper around the RICHEDIT50W control from the WinAPI. Versions 1.0+ use the EDIT control with Crinkler cranked and were built-up from tiny.asm then worked down to 890 bytes with Win Defender quite unhappy. Versions 2.0+ have Crinkler backed-off a bit and use RICHEDIT to gain cheaper access to Courier font and much larger files. 2.0+ was then worked down from 995 to 967 bytes.

Important: Programs using Crinkler can be flagged as a false positive by antivirus, including Windows Defender. You may need to make an antivirus exception folder to build this (especially for 1.0+), or Windows may delete the EXE as soon as the build completes. Therefore, try this out AT YOUR OWN RISK - NO WARRANTIES / NO GUARANTEES. You can accomplish this with PowerShell, but I am not going to tell you how. Sorry. You're on your own when messing with antivirus.

• MASM version used: Microsoft (R) Macro Assembler Version 14.44.35224.0
  

• MASM can vary depending on version. If you experience:

C:\masm32\include\winextra.inc(11052) : error A2026:constant expected
C:\masm32\include\winextra.inc(11053) : error A2026:constant expected

        In masm32\include\winextra.inc change:

    STD_ALERT struct<br>
        alrt_timestamp dd ?<br>
        alrt_eventname WCHAR  [EVLEN + 1] dup(?)
        alrt_servicename WCHAR [SNLEN + 1] dup(?)
    STD_ALERT ends

        to:

    STD_ALERT struct<br>
        alrt_timestamp dd ?<br>
        alrt_eventname WCHAR  (EVLEN + 1) dup(?)
        alrt_servicename WCHAR (SNLEN + 1) dup(?)
    STD_ALERT ends<br>

        The brackets on lines 13,14 were changed to parens.

• Build.bat contains: /LIBPATH:"C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Lib\10.0.20348.0\um\x86"
  You may need to change to fit your system: /LIBPATH:"....\Windows Kits\10\Lib\(your version)\um\x86"
• You need to have Crinkler installed in a directory that has been added to PATH.
  Example: C:\utils\Crinkler.exe
  

Contents:

Folder	Description
1_0	Version 1.0 aggressive 890 bytes build. Needs AV exception to be usable.
2_0_BACKUPS	Version 2.0 more features, 967 bytes build from RICHEDIT to release.

File	Description
build.bat	Builds DTE from command line.
DRAG ME ONTO DTE.txt	How to use DTE.
DTE ABOUT.txt	Explains some design decisions.
dte.asm	The program. Version 2.1.1
LICENSE	Usage permissions.

DTE in use: