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From: jerry@jvdsys.stuyts.nl (Jerry van Dijk)
Subject: Re: 3D engine, v.3
Date: 1999/03/23
Message-ID: <F91LLp.70@jvdsys.stuyts.nl>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 457937239
References: <36F66C5C.8370C364@Maths.UniNe.CH> <7d72el$f9h@drn.newsguy.com>
Organization: * JerryWare *, Leiden, Holland
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1999-03-23T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

Mike@word_nospam wrote:

: >Version #003 of the 3D engine with Gouraud-shaded textures
: >lays @ ftp://ftp.unine.ch/incoming/gautier/ Enjoy! G.

: But since this is DOS only application, is there a way to build it on Linux,
: or must one  use the DOS/GNAT compiler?  Why is that? does the GNAT/DOS
: compiler has special packages/libraries not in the Linux version that this
: application makes calls to?

Yes, Gautier is using a modified version of my svga package, which is
a DOS package based upon VBE v2.0.

: I get these link erros on Linux:
: ./djgpp_library.o: In function `djgpp_library___elabs':
: ./djgpp_library.o(.text+0x9): undefined reference to `_go32_info_block'
: ./pc_keyboard.o: In function `pc_keyboard__is_key_waiting':
: ./pc_keyboard.o(.text+0x17): undefined reference to `__dpmi_int'
: ./pc_keyboard.o: In function `pc_keyboard__get_scancode':

That is correct, these are direct or indirect calls to the runtime library
of the djgpp gcc port. These are, of course, not available on Linux.

In today's world there really are two ways to do graphics:

a) use OS specicic features
b) use a portable graphics platform

Personally I prefer option (a) since that gives the highest performance.
However, lots of people seem to prefer option (b) for portability
reasons. Option (b) includes two versions:

a) ported graphics engines
b) interpreted code

in catagory (a) there are gtk and opengl/mesa, in category (b) Java and
Tck/Tk.

As for a Linux version, that is possible but:
a) do you mean an X based one ?
b) do you mean a vgalib one ?
c) do you mean a vbe one ?

Note that a thin binding to vgalib (linux console graphics) with an
example is on my homepage (old site), so you can try porting Gautiers
code to this. Alas, vgalib is being phased out as newer kernels support
vbe graphics. Unfortunately, not everyone is using one of those yet.

As for X, I have not tried Gautiers package, but I would expect you could
archive the same using Glut and Mesa.

: Mike

: ps. why are people still using DOS?  :)

It is small, fast, cheap, and allows control over the whole machine, to name
just a few reasons. (yes, I noted the smiley, but still... :-)

Jerry.

--
-- Jerry van Dijk | Leiden, Holland
-- Team Ada       | jdijk@acm.org
-- see http://stad.dsl.nl/~jvandyk