Patrick Raynor

Ninja-ing Like It’s 1996: Porting samurai to MSVC 4.2

Mon, 13 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

There is a strange, intoxicating joy in retro-computing. Sometimes it’s running Windows NT on an old ThinkPad; other times, it’s trying to compile a modern C99 build tool with a compiler that hasn’t seen an update since Bill Clinton’s first presidential term.

Recently, I set my sights on samurai, a beautifully minimal clone of the Ninja build system written in C99. It’s light, clean, and POSIX-focused. My goal? Port it to Windows using Microsoft Visual C++ 4.2, released back in 1996. I wanted the ability to use native ninja build files for a separate retro-development project I’m working on, and using a modern toolchain felt like cheating.

Refreshed for 2026

Thu, 09 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Finally

Finally an update of this site. I have been relying on a static HTML5 Up template for the past ~3 years and it was time to refresh the site with a new design and updated content.

So I went back in time and found my old Ruby and Sinatra code and decided to use that as a base for the new site. I had to convert the old articles to Markdown from archive.org’s .atom file - that was fun.

Axel Project Janurary Update

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

It’s getting close to be almost 6 month’s since we have restarted work on The Axel Project with a nice clean slate of original code and it’s been quite a hectic month. Lots and lots of internal testing is going on, Saul is working on some cool stuff, Ben has had some fun debugging/playing the game online, Denis has CSS looking pretty tight, Logan is almost ready to present the E3 2003 maps, Sean I believe is still mapping the intro, and I have something in store later this month.

Refreshed, Again

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

It’s been almost exactly one month since the last update to everyone’s favorite web blog, and what a wonderful month it has been.

CSS 3 and HTML 5

The site is now running under HTML 5 and CSS 3, which both offer major improvements into how the site is, and can be, presented. CSS 3 allows me to use incredibly new fonts for some awesome typography, round corners on div’s, and some cool layout abilities.

Refreshed for 2009 and beyond

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

So after, what, 8+ months of the same old wordpress blog with automated twitter postings, it was time to move on and begin with a fresh state in mind. I decided that it was to be a complete refresh of the entire raynorpat.com domain, starting with the blog and landing page. I never liked the way Wordpress really flowed and I sure as hell wasn’t interested in making a complete theme to make it flow, so I bought myself a Ruby on Rails book, forked a copy of one of the simplest looking homepages (toolmantim’s on github), and went to work.

Projects

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Socials

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