I had to copy asmcapa.h over from obj/mingw32, and create the lib/dmc dir. I also copied over plugins.h, which didn't seem to make a difference for building the library.

I ran 'gmake ALLEGRO_USE_C=1 STATICLINK=1', and got this:

dmc   -L/SUBSYSTEM:WINDOWS -otests\win\dibgrab.exe obj\dmc\alleg_s\win\dibgrab.o
bj lib\dmc\alleg_s.lib kernel32.lib user32.lib gdi32.lib comdlg32.lib ole32.lib
dinput.lib ddraw.lib winmm.lib dsound.lib dxguid.lib
link obj\dmc\alleg_s\win\dibgrab,tests\win\dibgrab.exe,,lib\dmc\alleg_s+kernel32
+user32+gdi32+comdlg32+ole32+dinput+ddraw+winmm+dsound+dxguid+user32+kernel32/no
i/SUBSYSTEM:WINDOWS;
OPTLINK (R) for Win32  Release 7.50B1
Copyright (C) Digital Mars 1989 - 2001  All Rights Reserved

lib\dmc\alleg_s.lib(wgdi)
 Error 42: Symbol Undefined _gfx_gdi_unwrite_bank
lib\dmc\alleg_s.lib(wgdi)
 Error 42: Symbol Undefined _gfx_gdi_write_bank
lib\dmc\alleg_s.lib(wddwin)
 Error 42: Symbol Undefined _gfx_directx_write_bank_win
lib\dmc\alleg_s.lib(wddwin)
 Error 42: Symbol Undefined _gfx_directx_unwrite_bank_win
lib\dmc\alleg_s.lib(wddwin)
 Error 42: Symbol Undefined _gfx_directx_unlock_win
lib\dmc\alleg_s.lib(wddwin)
 Error 42: Symbol Undefined _gfx_directx_write_bank
lib\dmc\alleg_s.lib(wddwin)
 Error 42: Symbol Undefined _gfx_directx_unwrite_bank

--- errorlevel 7
gmake: *** [tests/win/dibgrab.exe] Error 7

So the librrary was built, but some symbols are missing. I haven't really looked into it yet. I'm using vanilla Allegro 4.2.1.

In case you haven't discovered it yet, the cl.exe tool that comes with translates msvc command lines into dmc ones. If you run it without any input files, it'll just print the msvc options.

Ok, I got it working now. I tried the exhello example, but it looks weird. No text, only a small black square on a white background.

But thanks anyway, linking DAllegro statically with alleg_s.lib works now.

=====================================================
EDIT:
=====================================================
I built just the Allegro library with gcc, msvc6 and dmc, and timed it.

Command: 'gmake lib STATICLINK=1 ALLEGRO_USE_C=1'

GCC: 107 seconds
msvc6: 55 seconds
DMC: 42 seconds

btw, the free DMC version is unable to link dynamically with the C std library (msvcrt.dll), because SND.lib is not included in the free download. Kind of silly.

The only limitation I can think of is that the executables become larger.

snn.lib is the standard C library implementation that both dmc an dmd uses. It's for static linking. snd.lib is the import library that dmc needs for linking dynamically with the C library DLL (which isn't free either).

I wasn't sure this would work, but by using the implib tool available here, you can create an msvcrt.lib file that both dmc an dmd will accept. Which will enable you to link dynamically with msvcrt.dll (the msvc C std library implementation).

The implib command line:
implib /s msvcrt.lib %windir%\system32\msvcrt.dll

And put the resulting msvcrt.lib in your dm\lib dir. implib also accepts a .def file instead of a .dll.

I don't know whether doing this is likely to cause trouble, but my 'hello world' test app works fine. It's only that Walter Bright (dmc and dmd creator) seems to think that using msvcrt.dll for DMC or DMD won't work. So it could easily be a dead end. No big deal, though.

The demo works for me. But the gfx mode selection gui doesn't have any text readable text in it. And part of my desktop shows through the title screen.

EDIT:
It seems to just skip loading the credits. It doesn't show the file names as they are scanned, and it just displays the title screen without the credits.

I get the same results you do. Without setting os_type, al_findirst returns nonzero, but the file name is just an empty string. al_findnext then returns -1. errno is zero.

With os_type = OSTYPE_UNKNOWN it works just fine.

My test program:
http://pastebin.co.uk/17433

It's starting to look like a character encoding issue to me. That might explain the garbled text I get in the menus too.

It works fine if you link dynamically with an allegro DLL built with msvc. It's dmc's own static lib build that doesn't work (which uses dmc's own C lib, not msvcrt.dll).

I don't have any problem with that. Could you try taking a screenshot?

That's basically what happens here. Although depending on the pattern, it behaves slightly differently. (Never properly.) To work around this for now, I can easily just change the find* routines to look for (OLD_WINDOWS || DMC).

For testing purposes, I changed title.c in demo to:

os_type = OSTYPE_WIN98;
for_each_file_ex(buf2, 0, ~(FA_ARCH | FA_RDONLY | FA_DIREC),
                    parse_source,
                    (void *)(unsigned long)(strlen(buf2) - 3));
os_type = OSTYPE_WINVISTA;

All the file stuff worked then.

Looks like its drawing all the letters one on top of the other. As if the letters are all 0 px wide.