From: matnborg AT intersurf DOT com
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject: Converting a Watcom LIB
Date: Sat, 18 Jan 97 15:02:56 GMT
Organization: InterSurf Online, Inc.
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Message-ID: <5bqot2$md7@dim.intersurf.net>
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To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
DJ-Gateway: from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp

Greetings to the djgpp public at large!

Recently, I tried something that the djgpp FAQ and many, many other users said 
couldn't be done; converted a .lib file to it's .o components using Team 
Spirit's object->coff converter, o2c.  

Specifically, I tried to convert the Virtual Presence library (a post-DOOM 
clone).  The .lib was produced by Watcom, and is a 32-bit flat memory model 
lib.

Using o2c, with the -u and -r parameters (remove trailing underscore, prepend 
underscore), and broken the .lib down into a number of .o files.  After fixing 
the source code (the prepending of the underscore took care of a good deal of 
problems, but added some new ones with concerns to certain function names), 
and then fixing two of the .o files (after the -u -r conversion, two function 
names which were similar, but made dissimilar by the arbitrary use of 
underscores, became similar).

Now, it had become time to compile.

After having to fix a number of the source files to work with the Allegro 
library (I simply didn't trust the original author's work using registers and 
such to manipulate video modes, and perform certain graphics primitives), the 
source compiled (almost perfectly, I might add).  I stubified my .out file, 
added some stack space, and ran my resulting program.

Everything was going fine until it ran one of the primary routines in the API 
(VPE_Init, for anyone familiar with Virtual Presence).  It then promptly 
exited with an unknown fatal error (VPE has it's own internal fatal error 
handling).  I used fsdb (which I am _totally_ unfamiliar with, except for 
basic operation) and it told me that the program was exiting with an errorcode 
of 116.

Does anyone know what errorcode 116 is?  Is this an internal thing?

I tried to contact the author of the VPE library time and time again, to no 
avail.  He apparently is more interested in writing his Solid's editor (which 
I can understand).  He has done some amazing work with VPE (I can find _no_ 
replacement for the volume of work he has done, otherwise I wouldn't have 
fooled with trying to port his work).  

If anyone has any input, or suggestions on another shareware/freeware 3d 
engine of similar quality, please let me know.

David Jackson
crankcase AT hotmail DOT com