Things Up Microsoft's Sleeve - Console Graphics

CreateConsoleScreenBuffer, what a fabulous function. You ask it nicely, and it gives you as many 'console window content' buffers as you want. With the other supporting functions it's everything you need for a AAA game (ascii-art-animation natch). But backup a minute here. what's that mysteriously reserved parameter for and why is there a flags argument with a weasely worded "only supported screen buffer type"? Sounds like there's something else it can (or at least could) do.

Sure enough, there is. For the function really doesn't just have one defined buffer type, it has two. The second is the truthfully, if optimistically, named CONSOLE_GRAPHICS_BUFFER. Now doesn't that sound fancy? I mean, non-ascii graphics in the console, groovy!

The creation of this 'graphics buffer' works via the magic of that bogus 'reserved' last parameter. Forget about your regions and device contexts though, where we're going is much more low-tech.

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