BMP Files

Microsoft introduced the BMP file format in Windows 3.0 as a device-independent image file format (an earlier version of the BMP file format, which differs only in the file headers, was introduced in OS/2 1.x). While the BMP format includes a data compression mechanism, the vast majority of BMP files are not compressed, sacrificing file size in favor of faster image display. BMP files are used primarily in Windows applications, but there's nothing specific to Windows in a BMP file, so many DOS graphics programs also read and write BMP files. Fastgraph includes functions for displaying and creating BMP files, as well as other BMP support functions, all of which are very similar to their PCX counterparts.