1.What is BETATRON?
2.Why is BETATRON different from other libraries?
3.What are some of BETATRON's Features?
4.Contacting the author.

1.What is BETATRON ?

BETATRON is a game library that helps you create 2D-platform and action-arcade games. BETATRON is written in C++ for the DJGPP v2.0 compiler (port of the GNU compiler for MS-DOS), but it may also be ported to Windows 95 in the future. BETATRON is a unique game library because it is fast, very specialized , it includes full source code and it is free.

2.Why is BETATRON different from other libraries?

• BETATRON is sprite oriented. The primary object of a BETATRON program is the sprite. That's why there are a lot of routines which handle sprites and tiles, but a few routines which handle geometric shapes like lines, circles. etc.
• BETATRON is a high level game library. The user does not have to worry about important details like how the sprites are displayed or clipped, how the scrolling is done, how the background is drawn. All of these details are automatically handled by BETATRON. So the user can concentrate his efforts in making new challenging types of sprites with intelligent behaviour rather than "playing" with the vga registers ,to implement scrolling for example. In rare cases you will need to access the video memory directly, but BETATRON supply you with a couple of routines even for those cases.
• BETATRON is fast. The best known algorithms and tecniques have been used in this library, so BETATRON's engine is controlled by the vertical retrace (that's about 70 frames/sec but it depends on the graphics mode) , while a lot of sprites are moving on the screen , on a 486/66 with VLB or PCI vga.
• Full source code is included so you can now explore yourself all the mysteries of the game programming black art.
• BETATRON is distributed under the GNU General Public License, so it is free but can be used even for commercial purposes. Please refer to the license for more details.

3.What are some of BETATRON's features?

• Standard vga compatible - 320x200x256 modex graphic mode
• complete VESA 2.00 support for any mode with 256 colors and enough memory.
• full source code included
• It is free (distributed under GNU LGPL)
• smooth animation controlled by the vertical retrace in all supported modes
• smooth scrolling to a maximum of 16 pixels/frame
• extendable from the user (C++)
• complete 'world' support which includes:
• built in scrolling routines - multiple layers for easy background creation
• built in background<->sprites interaction support - full sprites support , automating clipping ,drawing and handling - priority lists for sprites
• pixel precise collision detection routine
• any shape bounding surfaces.
• grids for clustering the sprites and performing fast collision detection.
• many bitmap formats (including an RLE variant)
• complete sprites/objects support:
• action functions for easy and fast animation.
• various flags that can alter the sprite activity
• fully customizable behaviour of the sprites
• excellent low level keyboard handler - excellent timer handler - various vga routines
• WINDOWS 95 compatibility

4. Contacting the author.

If you have any problem with BETATRON don't hesitate send me an email message at liouros@hotmail.com I will try to reply to your mail as soon as possible. If you have any comments, suggestions or you like to contribute please let me know. If you have already used BETATRON to make something cool I would like to see it.

DJGPP is a port of the popular GNU C/C++ compiler ,for MS-DOS. DJGPP produces very well optimized 32-bit protected mode code. If you are interested in a high class compiler then DJGPP is the best compiler you can get without giving a penny. Although DJGPP is free it produces faster code than many commercial compilers. And there are already so many toolkits written for DJGPP. For more information check the following address:
  Brennan's DJGPP2 + game resources

If you are interested in game programming you should also check this address:
   Moonbase game programming resources

BETATRON can be found in the v2tk directory of all DJGPP mirrors. One well known such mirror is the SimTel. Mirrors of SimTel are everywhere. Below some representative sites are given. The file size is 232K.

Europe, Sweden: (Pretty fast)
  ftp.sunet.se/pub/simtelnet/gnu/djgpp/v2tk/btron10.zip
Europe, Greece:
  ftp.ntua.gr/pub/pc/simtelnet/gnu/djgpp/v2tk/btron10.zip
America:
  oak.oakland.edu/pub/simtelnet/gnu/djgpp/v2tk/btron10.zip