SVGALib

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

SVGAlib is an open-source low-level graphics library which runs on Linux and FreeBSD and allows programs to change video mode and display full-screen graphics. Some popular games like Quake and Doom used it in their original releases.

The library was popular in mid-1990s. Toward 2000, many applications that used it migrated to X11 and SDL, which itself can make use of SVGAlib as a video driver.

A sample of SVGAlib code is shown below.

#include <stdlib.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <vga.h>
 
int main(void)
{
   int color = 4;
   int x = 10;
   int y = 10;
   unsigned int seconds = 5;
 
   /* detect the chipset and give up supervisor rights */
   if (vga_init() < 0)
        return EXIT_FAILURE;
 
   vga_setmode(G320x200x256);
   vga_setcolor(color);
   vga_drawpixel(x, y);
 
   sleep(seconds);
 
   /* restore textmode and fall back to ordinary text console handling */
   vga_setmode(TEXT);
 
   return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}