What are “near\ and “far\ pointers?
These days, they’re pretty much obsolete; they’re definitely system-specific. They had to do with 16-bit programming under MS-DOS and perhaps some early versions of Windows. If you really need to know, see a DOS- or Windows-specific programming reference. If you’re using a machine which doesn’t require (or permit) making the near/far pointer distinction, just delete the unnecessary “near” and “far” keywords (perhaps using the preprocessor: “#define far /* nothing */”). comp.lang.c FAQ list ยท Question 19.41 Q: But I can’t use all these nonstandard, system-dependent functions, because my program has to be ANSI compatible! A: You’re out of luck. Either you misunderstood your requirement, or it’s an impossible one to meet. ANSI/ISO Standard C simply does not define ways of doing these things; it is a language standard, not an operating system standard. An international standard which does address many of these issues is POSIX (IEEE 1003.1, ISO/IEC 9945-1), and many operating systems
