Aloha! And welcome to the first issue of the TinyApps.Org newsletter. Many thanks to all of you who have contributed over the past few weeks - your suggestions are most appreciated. Like the website itself, this newsletter will be brief and to the point. The format will generally be: 1. news, 2. new apps, 3. an article or "Up Close" look at some tiny topic. You are strongly encouraged to submit ideas, feedback, and apps to: miles@xxxxxxxxxxxx NEWS There is a new code in the listings: the plus symbol (+) indicates "no install necessary". ===== If you have not seen the special version of NoteTab Light that Eric Fookes kindly put together for TinyApps, check it out at: http://www.tinyapps.org/text.html or download it directly from: http://www.notetab.com/ftp/notetab486c.exe ===== NEW APPS There are far too many apps that have been added recently to list here. Here is a smattering: Editor2 [47k] + http://personal-pages.ps.ic.ac.uk/~umeca74/ "The Quadratic replacement for Notepad". Includes an AutoText feature for frequently used text. NotGNU Emacs Editor [from 164k] + http://www.geocities.com/notgnu/ Similar to GNU Emacs but much smaller and lighter, with a Windows look and feel. Several versions available. FFCAT [8k] + http://www.professional.org/ncutil.html A small DOS utility to concatenate (combine) multiple files into a single new file. OffByOne Web Browser [1100k] + http://www.offbyone.com/ "May be the world's smallest and fastest Web Browser with full HTML 3.2 support. It is a completely self-contained, stand-alone 1.1mb application with no dependencies on any other browser or browser component." Vallen e-Mailer [356k] + http://www.vallen.de/freeware/index.html Group mail sender ===== UP CLOSE: QNX Demo Disk The QNX Demo Disk played a large part in my deciding to create TinyApps.org. I wanted to help spread the word about clean, tightly coded apps that could literally transform a person's paradigm of software and programming overnight, and the Demo Disk was (for me) the quintessential tiny app. The following 1997 Usenet post by the Demo Disk's founder, Dan Hildebrand, best summarizes this miracle of programming: ===== "The 1.44M Web Challenge" The challenge: Put a Web browser, a web server, a POSIX-certified realtime OS, TCP/IP and a windowing system on a single 1.44 Mbyte floppy disk. Impossible? QNX Software Systems Ltd. announces the QNX Demo Disk (downloadable from http://www.qnx.com/iat/). This single 1.44 Mbyte floppy disk contains: 1. Voyager Web Browser (Full HTML 3.2, frames, tables, etc.) 2. Voyager Embedded Web Server 3. The QNX Realtime Operating System 4. TCP/IP (with PPP including CHAP/PAP support) 5. Photon microGUI Windowing System 6. A "remote control" device to simulate a TV set top box 7. An Internet Phone Dialer 8. A Graphical File Browser 9. A Graphical Text Editor 10. A Vector Graphics Animation 11. Over 180 Kbytes of HTML and image content With this floppy disk and a desktop PC, you can browse the web or turn that PC into a web server accessible to other computers on the Internet. To download a copy, visit the http://www.qnx.com/iat/ website. To run the demodisk, you'll need a PC with a 386 or better, 6 Mbytes of RAM minimum, a mouse, VGA or better video and, optionally, a modem. A floppy drive is required, but the hard drive is not. :-) ===== If you have not had a chance to experience the QNX Demo Disk yet, check it out today at: http://www.qnx.com/iat/ There is now both a network version and a modem version. Please note that you will need a real modem (*not* a WinModem) if you wish to connect using a modem. The network version currently supports Dec 21*4*, NE2000, and 3com 509 based network cards. More resources: "The 1.44M Web Challenge" - posting by Dan on comp.os.qnx which appears above: http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=5n1t6s%24be0%40qnx.com&output=gplain "How We Did It" http://www.qnx.com/demodisk/how.html Dan Hildebrand interview in USENIX http://www.usenix.org/publications/login/1998-6/interview.html +++++ To Subscribe or Unsubscribe: Send a blank email to tinyapps-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with either 'subscribe' or 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field. You can also use the web interface, which has additional options: http://www.tinyapps.org/ezine.html +++Disclaimer: You are 100% responsible +++for your own actions. Visiting a link, +++downloading a program, in short, *living*, +++is done entirely at your own risk (and joy).