libdgl/README.md
Gered 62af8575c6 various updates i've left uncommitted for many months
- rename standard integer types to a more familiar (u)int(8/16/32)
- many function/struct renames. i don't _really_ know if what i've done
  for this is better, but it "feels" better to me. many draw/blit
  function names are shorter which is nice, at least. kinda important
  to me because i develop this on a real DOS machine in 80x50 text mode.
- add 'extern "C"' blocks to headers for C++ compiler usage
- draw/pixel color value arguments for functions should all have been
  changed to be uint8 instead of a full 32-bit int. feels right, but
  maybe should've left alone...
- small fix to keyboard handler. noticed a problem on one thinkpad
  laptop. was a result of what i think was a typo in a constant value
  used during the part of the interrupt handler that tells the keyboard
  controller the key event was processed
- fix uncommon potential crash function return in draw_filled_rect
- renamed low-level "direct" assembly functions to "lowlevel_xxx" to
  be a little bit more explicit about what they are
- add some convenience event helper functions for determining event
  types
- add fixed point atan2
- fixed some tabs/spaces inconsistences (should all be spaces now?)
- maybe some other minor things i've forgotten
2020-07-19 19:24:48 -04:00

73 lines
2 KiB
Markdown
Executable file

# libDGL
libDGL is a "retro coding" C library aimed at MS-DOS
[VGA Mode 13h](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_13h) game development. It targets 486 DX2 systems as a baseline for performance.
The project is developed with Watcom C 10.0b and Borland Turbo Assembler 4.0.
### Why?
Because it's fun.
If you were looking for something for "retro" MS-DOS game development that is fully featured,
really performant and bug-tested that's ready right now, have a look at Allegro 3.x or possibly
4.x depending on what hardware you're targetting.
### Status
This library is currently under early development and is lacking many things and probably
chock-full of bugs.
**Done / Mostly Done**
* Primitive drawing support
* Text rendering
* Blitting
* Graphics clipping
* Keyboard input
* Mouse input
* Input device (keyboard/mouse) events
* PCX loading/saving
* Math library (general helpers, 2D vector, 3x3 matrix)
* Fixed point math
* Basic error handling / results
**TODO**
* Scaled/rotated blitting support
* Blending
* "Mode 7" like support
* Custom font loading (BIOS-like format?)
* Joystick / Gravis GamePad support
* PC speaker sounds
* Sound Blaster compatible sound/music
* Gravis Ultrasound compatible sound/music
* Sine/cosine lookup table optimizations
* BMP, LBM, GIF image loading (and saving?)
* Simple immediate mode GUI
### Building
You can use `WMAKE` to build using the included `MAKEFILE`.
To build the library:
```
> wmake target_config=debug build ; debug build
> wmake target_config=release build ; release build
```
Will output `DGL.LIB` in the project directory.
To build and run the (incomplete) test suite, look under the "TEST" directory. There you will
find a separate `MAKEFILE` which assumes that you are running `wmake` from that directory and
that `DGL.LIB` has already been built.
```
> cd test
test> wmake run ; run test suite
test> wmake debug ; run through WD debugger
```