LOL IT'S C TIME

Hi /prog/, I have some experience with C, but I don't know how to do much except take text input, save variables, calculate, and print text out. What should I read to learn to do things like display graphics, save/load files, send/receive data using ports, et cetera?

I think the more important question is, why does C have -> in the first place, when the same can be accomplished by dereferencing the pointer and then referencing the member: (*a).b versus a->b.  It's much more obvious what it's doing at a glance, and if the operator precedence for such things weren't so screwy it wouldn't even be more characters to type. *a.b reads intuitively from left to right: "dereference the pointer 'a', and access field 'b'".