SDL should use directdraw on windows from what I remember. So it shouldn't be that slow for blitting things.
My 2d-in-3d library used to sit on top of sdl. So I've used it a good amount, but not really for doing old school, blit based 2d.
It lets you set up an opengl context pretty easy. From there you can do blending/scaling/rotation.... pretty much anything. Skys the limit, since you are just working with raw opengl.
But this means you would still have to roll your own 2d drawing functions.
My 2d-in-3d library used to sit on top of sdl. So I've used it a good amount, but not really for doing old school, blit based 2d.
It lets you set up an opengl context pretty easy. From there you can do blending/scaling/rotation.... pretty much anything. Skys the limit, since you are just working with raw opengl.
But this means you would still have to roll your own 2d drawing functions.