BMP

BMP is a device independent, two dimensional raster graphics file format introduced with OS/2 v1.0 and later incorporated into Microsoft Windows where it replaced the now forgotten DDP format. The name is simply a shortening of "Bitmap" and not an acronym.

Two specialised versions of the format exist in the form of the Pointer and ICO raster graphic array files.

The BMP format is sometimes used in embedded programming for the same reason it was used in OS/2 and MS Windows, even with the (very simple Huffman and RLL) compression options, loading and displaying BMP files is very simple affair and decompression takes very little processing power. And when dealing with small files for small screens the slight size increase versus newer formats is a non issue.

OS/2 Bitmap Format

OS/2 1.x

• Windows 3.0 DIB (Device Independent Bitmap)

OS/2 2.x

• Compression
• Multiple units of length
• Half-toming
• Multiple colour code schemes
• User-defined space
• Structure
  • Bitmap Information Structure
  • Colour table (required for 24-bit)
  • Bitmap Pel Data

Links

• Description of the BMP related formats - From Presentation Manager Programming Reference, Volume III.
• BMP description on WikiPedia - Note that it focuses on the OS/2 1.x format and does not include descriptions of any of the improvements included with the OS/2 v2 version of the format.
• Info from "The Encyclopedia of Graphics File Formats" - Again, OS/2 2.x variations missing.
• Dscription of the Windows version