Console mode graphics using Visual C++ 2010

In the old Borland and Turbo C++ for DOS days, it was quite easy to use console-graphics modes. VC++ has traditionally not supported these modes. Although people have hacked around with inline assembly and direct video buffer writes to do console mode graphics from VC++ too.

Modern day VC++ editions do not support any kind of graphics modes in console applications. But all's not lost, and if you are really keen on doing this, you can use OpenGL which does seem to support console-mode graphics. That said, it would probably be a far more practical idea to write a windows mode application and then use something like GDI+ or even DirectX/XNA/WPF to render high performant graphics. That's your call though.

Related thread on the OpenGL forums:

http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=101398[^]

Since Nishant Sivakumar mentioned the "good old days" of DOS, Turbo Vision[^] is an option if you want to develop an "intuitive" console/text mode application.

It now works on DOS, FreeBSD, Linux, QNX, Solaris and Win32 :)

Have fun :)

Regards
Espen Harlinn