Working on Windows XP, and using the Visula Studio 10 command line tools set.
Compiling the library for Windows console using nmake: nmake -f makefile.vc dll=y.
The build fails because of the variable PLATFORM which isn't defined in makefile.vc.
In makefile.vc, this variable defines the option -machine for the linker.
To fix the issue I have added the following lines in makefile.vc:
#defaut cpu architecture required for option ddl=yes
!ifndef PLATFORM
PLATFORM = X86
!endif
Now the pdcurses.dll build is successfully.