quote: Original post by CobraA1

Is it possible to create a program that ports easily between X Windows and Windows 9x? If so, what would I use?

I don''t think such a program exists. But no doubt someone will prove me wrong.

Your first step is to make sure that you only use ANSI C/C++ functions wherever possible. The ''ANSI''ness of a function is detailed in the help files for both MSVC and Borland C++ Builder, so you can find out before you use anything. As far as libraries/frameworks go, MFC is a no-no, as is ATL, OWL, and VCL. STL is portable though, and for games there are numerous portable libraries you can look into. I haven''t used many of these yet, but OpenGL is obviously the most well known. OpenAL is worth considering for audio too I think. And SDL (Simple DirectMedia Layer) is apparently being used to port top-quality games, see www.devolution.com/~slouken/SDL/.

Any functions you use that are prefixed with two underscores are also sometimes cause for concern, as they are implementation specific and therefore may not work anywhere else.

Hope that gets you started, I''m sure some more knowledgeable people than myself could add to that list.

Actually many of the windowing toolkits available for X Windows have windows ports. I think GTK and Qt both do. So theoretically you can code a UI in GTK and have it work in Windows.

Also, for the more game oriented, there are cross-platform APIs available that will let you code for multiple target platforms. ClanLib comes to mind immediately. glut is also cross-platform, but less suitable for gaming (not bad for effects demos though). Also the next version of glut is supposed to have improved input interfaces for gaming.