http://www.objectcentral.com/ has an IDE for the borland commandline compiler.

SDL is similar to DirectX, without the 3d component (but it can be used in conjunction with OpenGL to make up for that). It is also completely multi-platform, meaning if you use it, your audience includes Windows, Macintoshes, Linux, BeOS, and probably more.

For your first game, you''re probably better off just using DirectX. But in the future, SDL is something you should consider using. Here are a few disadvantages of SDL:

1. Since it''s a wrapper, it''s going to be slower than just programming directly in DirectDraw, GameSprockets, or whatever. But the slowdown is probably close to negligible.

2. Users must have the SDL libraries installed on their system to use your game. This does create a slight problem if your game is not open source, because SDL has slightly restrictive licensing terms. However, you can get around this by dynamically linking with the SDL library, and then distributing the (freely available) SDL source code with your game.

I don''t know much about Allegro, but from what I''ve heard, and correct me if I''m wrong, but I''ve gathered that it''s a "high-level" library that provides routines like line drawing, shapes, bitmap blitting, etc. That''s fine for less serious game programmers, but if you are serious about game programming, learn DirectX/SDL, or even DOS VGA mode X.

- Andy Oxfeld