Articles on Patrick Raynor

Debugging Darwin 0.3: When an IDE Driver Problem Was Really an Interrupt Controller Bug

Mon, 27 Jul 2026 09:00:00 -0400

Working on an operating system from the late 1990s often feels less like ordinary development and more like software archaeology.

Recently, I have been experimenting with Apple’s early open-source Darwin code—specifically the Darwin 0.3 i386 kernel and its surrounding driver set. Two problems in the old EIDE stack sent me through PCI controller detection, ATA command recovery, QEMU tracing, and eventually into the kernel’s 8259 interrupt-controller code.

What initially looked like two separate IDE driver defects turned into a useful lesson:

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.