Does anybody have a good tutorial on writing a software rendering engine without the use of SDL?

I know it's probably not what you want, but I'm gonna recommend a book anyway. "3D Game Engine Programming" by Stefan Zerbst and Oliver Duvel has been an excellent read until now. The book is not aimed at total beginners, it assumes you have a working knowledge of C, and classes in C++ but other than that it's been a great inspiration for me.

Basically the book takes you through all the steps of making a game engine, complete with audio, input and networking support. After that you get to build a level editor and even a first person shooter.

The book is slightly chaotic in that some files on the CD-ROM are corrupt but there's a website ( http://stefan.zfx.info/3dgep.html ) on which fixes are provided. I should warn you though, the author doesn't help you with everything. The book is already 800 pages and sometimes he just refers to the DX documentation or the sourcecode on the CD-ROM. As such, you have to be able, and willing, to put some time into the book and research things of your own as well.

Hope, this helps you ;)