
Changes from 2.0 to 2.1 (June 1996)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

   Mode-X support (thanks to Jonathan Tarbox and Dominique Biesmans for 
   suggesting and then helping to implement this).

   Compiled sprites.

   Jonathan Tarbox contributed an FLI/FLC player.

   Added patterned drawing modes.

   Added a vertical retrace interrupt simulator.

   polygon() can now handle concave and self-intersecting shapes. I also 
   changed the parameters a bit. Sorry if this breaks your old code, but 
   it's more efficient the new way...

   Added stretch_sprite().

   Wrote a floodfill() routine.

   More flexible pallete fade routines.

   Added set_volume() to the sound code.

   David Calvin wrote a sound setup utility.

   Improved the GUI. Added popup/dropdown menus, joystick input, three 
   button alert boxes, better handling of arrow key focus movement, a new 
   keyboard shortcut object (d_keyboard_proc()), and '&' markers in strings 
   to display keyboard shortcuts. The GUI can also now be used with fonts 
   other than the standard 8x8 default, by altering the global 'font' 
   pointer.

   Fabian Nunez added support for the CH Flightstick Pro joystick (looks 
   cool: I want one :-) and 3-button mice.

   The keyboard handler now responds to the state of the ctrl and alt keys, 
   and there is a new simulate_keypress() function.

   Mark Wodrich added sub-bitmaps, which share their memory with a parent 
   bitmap but can be positioned anywhere within it, and have their own 
   clipping rectangles.

   Mark also modified the mouse driver to double-buffer the pointer (so it 
   doesn't flicker any more), and added a set_mouse_sprite_focus() function.

   Added set_mouse_range() and set_mouse_speed() functions.

   Thanks (again) to Mark Wodrich, the grabber can now import GRX .FNT files.

   The grabber can now make backups when saving datafiles, and it only 
   writes the datafile headers if their contents have changed, to prevent 
   unnecessary recompilation.

   Added a text_height() function.

   The fixed point inverse sin and inverse cos functions now use lookup 
   tables, which makes them a lot faster.

   Reorganised the directory structure, added some example programs, and 
   improved the documentation.


Changes from 2.0 beta to release version (March 1996)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

   Marcel de Kogel fixed some problems with the MPU-401 driver. It now 
   actually works :-)

   Marcel also provided some better drum sounds for the Adlib driver.

   Inlined the fmul() and fdiv() functions.

   Much faster fsqrt(), taken from Arne Steinarson's fix-float library.

   Added inline bmp_write_line(), bmp_read_line(), and _putpixel() functions.

   The keyboard routines now support the emergency abort sequence 
   ctrl+alt+del, and there are signal handlers to make sure Allegro will 
   shut down cleanly if your program crashes.

   Wrote new irq wrappers that can deal with reentrant interrupts.

   Added joystick routines (based on code provided by Jonathan Tarbox and 
   Marcel de Kogel).

   Moved some functions to different files and juggled things about so the 
   linker can do a better job. If you don't use the sound stuff, or don't 
   use any graphics functions, now they won't be linked into your executable.

   Marcel de Kogel manged to locate my (embarrassingly stupid :-) mistake 
   which was preventing the VESA 2.0 linear framebuffer driver from working.

   Various other performance enhancements and bug fixes.


Changes from Allegro 1.x to 2.0 beta (Jan/Feb 1996)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

   Dropped all the Borland code. A couple of months ago I ran out of disk 
   space, and it was with great satisfaction the I executed the command 
   'deltree /y c:\bc4'. It was a horrible compiler, and I'm glad it's dead.

   Added SVGA support. As a result it no longer makes sense for 
   allegro_init() to put the system into mode 13h, so you will be in text 
   mode until you call set_gfx_mode().

   Added sound code (background MIDI music and sample mixing).

   Added support for proportional fonts (of any size) as well as the old 8x8 
   fixed size ones.

   XOR drawing mode.

   There is no longer such a thing as a SPRITE structure. The sprite drawing 
   code now draws bitmaps onto other bitmaps, which is a much more flexible 
   way of doing things. The datafile reader will convert all your old 
   sprites to bitmaps as it loads them in, so the only practical difference 
   this is likely to make is that the sprite drawing routines can't draw 
   opaque sprites any more (but you can use a blit instead).

   show() and get_sprite() no longer exist: use blit() instead.

   Added flipped and rotated sprite draw routines.

   Added bitmap scaling.

   Added RLE sprites.

   drawsprite() has been renamed to draw_sprite().

   textmode() has been renamed to text_mode(), to avoid conflicts with 
   definitions in conio.h.

   All the file access functions have been renamed from the stdio syntax to 
   pack_fopen(), pack_getc(), etc, so they can now be mixed with stdio code.

   Added pack_fgets() and pack_fputs().

   The port_callback pointer no longer exists.

   Removed polyline() (who ever used it?), and added a polygon(), which 
   draws a filled convex polygon with an arbitrary number of vertices.

   Added do_line() and do_circle() functions, which call a user-supplied 
   function for each pixel that needs to be drawn.

   Added a default keyboard interface to the GUI routines, allowing the 
   selection of objects with the arrow keys and <enter>.

   Added several new GUI messages and flags. In particular there are now 
   messages for tracking mouse cursor movement, an idle message, a special 
   return value for the MSG_CHAR message which allows an object to override 
   the default keyboard handling, and a flag which hides the object.

   There are new GUI routines to centre a dialog on the screen and to alter 
   the colors used by the standard alert and file selector dialogs.

   The file selector now takes a third parameter specifying which file 
   extensions to display.

   The timer routines now have better than millisecond accuracy, and it is 
   possible to alter the speed of a user timer callback in realtime (by 
   reinstalling it with a different speed value).

   Removed the _RGB struct and paltorgb() functions. RGB's are now stored 
   directly in the hardware format, with each value in the range 0-63.

   Added functions to get and set single pallete entries as well as entire 
   palletes.

   Added DPMI memory locking code.

   Wrote a C++ 'fix' class which overloads a lot of operators, providing an 
   easy way to use the fixed point routines.

   There are probably lots of other things that I have forgotten about.

