Borland Graphics Interface

<h2 id="third-party-bgi-drivers">Third-party BGI drivers</h2>
<p>Given the popularity of Borland compilers, a few independent software developers produced BGI drivers for non-standard video modes, advanced video cards, plotters, printers, and graphics file output.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:2" href="#fn:2"><sup>2</sup></a>
</p><p>In 1994 Jordan Hargraphix Software released <a href="/facts/SVGA/McoGejer">SVGA</a> BGI drivers version 5.5 that are compatible with some SVGA hardware like <a href="/facts/ATI_Technologies_Inc./7hPl9Cqx">ATI</a> or <a href="/facts/Cirrus_Logic/yjRGFyp0">Cirrus Logic</a> cards and <a href="/facts/VESA/tWrcxDNt">VESA</a> <a href="/facts/VBE/h0zmB0qW">VBE</a>-compatible cards. Also there are tweaked VGA drivers for non-standard graphic modes supported by VGA by writing directly into its registers, <a href="/facts/Protected_mode/y5u3Gwqq">protected mode</a> driver versions for <a href="/facts/Turbo_Pascal/2aWFEk9z">Turbo Pascal</a> 7.0 and mouse driver (actually cursor handler for unsupported video modes by standard mouse drivers). These drivers were <a href="/facts/Shareware/TAhIvJXt">shareware</a> and buying them let receiving their source code and technical support; now they are no longer supported, but on 19 December 2020 Jordan Hargrave kindly released source code under the <a href="/facts/MIT_License/8llAQtlk">MIT License</a> on <a href="/facts/GitHub/n1hNCsc3">GitHub</a>.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:3" href="#fn:3"><sup>3</sup></a> Main bugs are lack of aligning bytes support in VESA <a href="/facts/Color_depth/0X7zI9BP">true-color</a> modes (so the true-color driver is not suitable for <a href="/facts/Nvidia/8QfCgqbu">Nvidia</a> graphic cards) and <a href="/facts/Video_memory/koI9FGo5">video memory</a> bank switching bug in mouse driver (since <a href="/facts/Real_mode/wfU8vfjn">real mode</a> addressing space is 1 megabyte, but some video modes require up to 4 megabytes of memory, it is split into 64 kilobyte banks).
</p>
<h2 id="legacy">Legacy</h2>
<p>A BGI-compatible library, named Graph, is included in the <a href="/facts/Free_Pascal/kmGChqAg">Free Pascal</a> Pascal compiler.<a class="footnote-ref" id="fnref:4" href="#fn:4"><sup>4</sup></a>
Several BGI implementations for present-day operating systems are also available (see External links.)
</p>
<h2 id="example">Example</h2>
<p>The following program, written for <a href="/facts/Borland_Turbo_C/guLaLnDR">Borland Turbo C</a>, initialises the graphics and draws 1000 random lines:
</p>
#include <graphics.h>
#include <conio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int main (int argc, char *argv[])
{
  int i, gd = DETECT, gm;
  initgraph(&gd, &gm, "");
  setbkcolor(BLACK);
  cleardevice();
  outtextxy(0, 0, "Drawing 1000 lines...");
  for (i = 0; i < 1000; i++) {
    setcolor(1 + random(15));
    line(random(getmaxx()), random(getmaxy()), 
         random(getmaxx()), random(getmaxy()));
  }
  getch();
  closegraph();
  return 0;
}

<h2 id="see-also">See also</h2>
<ul><li><a href="/facts/Allegro_(software_library)/mK4JBTk2">Allegro</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/Graphics_System_Extension/oE8BpWAq">Graphics System Extension</a> (GSX)</li>
<li><a href="/facts/Graphical_Kernel_System/bdVdRjNt">Graphical Kernel System</a> (GKS)</li>
<li><a href="/facts/Raylib/fbq6I4zk">Raylib</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/SciTech_SNAP/fmdI5Sz4">SciTech SNAP</a></li>
<li><a href="/facts/UniVBE/kxsrwmMY">UniVBE</a></li></ul>

<ul><li>Turbo C++ 3.0 User's Guide. Borland International, Inc. 1992.</li>
<li>Borland C++ Library Reference. Borland International, Inc. 1992.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~main/bgi/doc/">Borland Graphics Interface (BGI) Documentation</a></li></ul>
<h2 id="external-links">External links</h2>
<ul><li><a href="https://sdl-bgi.sourceforge.io/">SDL_bgi</a> is a multiplatform port written in SDL2; it provides several extensions.</li>
<li><a href="http://winbgim.codecutter.org">Winbgim</a> is a port of BGI for Microsoft Windows; it provides several extensions.</li>
<li>The <a href="http://grx.gnu.de">GRX graphics library</a> contains a BGI subsystem, mostly compatible with the original BGI.</li>
<li><a href="http://openbgi.sourceforge.net">OpenBGI library</a> is another port for Microsoft Windows.</li>
<li><a href="http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/libgraph/">libgraph</a> is a BGI implementation for Linux written in SDL1.</li>
<li><a href="http://www.fileformat.info/format/borland-chr/corion.htm">Fileformat.info page about chr</a> contains some information on how to decode Borland CHR font.</li>
<li><a href="https://ftp.sunet.se/mirror/archive/ftp.sunet.se/pub/simtelnet/msdos/borland/">sunet.se</a> ftp mirror with some CHR font tools.</li></ul>

<h2 id="references">References</h2>

<ol>
<li id="fn:1"><p>"Computer Graphics", ISRD Group, 2006. ISBN 0070593760 <a href="/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)" target="_blank">/wiki/ISBN_(identifier)</a> <a href="#fnref:1" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:2"><p>Freeware BGI drivers, Jordan Hargraphix BGI drivers, Knight Software BGI256 <a href="http://www.von-bassewitz.de/uz/bgi.php" target="_blank">http://www.von-bassewitz.de/uz/bgi.php</a> <a href="#fnref:2" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:3"><p>SuperVGA BGI Drivers for Turbo C/Turbo Pascal/Borland C++ <a href="https://github.com/jharg93/SvgaBGI" target="_blank">https://github.com/jharg93/SvgaBGI</a> <a href="#fnref:3" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
<li id="fn:4"><p>Reference for unit 'Graph': Procedures and functions <a href="https://www.freepascal.org/docs-html/rtl/graph/index-5.html" target="_blank">https://www.freepascal.org/docs-html/rtl/graph/index-5.html</a> <a href="#fnref:4" class="footnote-back-ref">↩</a></p></li>
</ol>

Borland Graphics Interface open-in-new

Borland Graphics Interface