The most recent extension of my programming activities has been to start to experiment with Delphi, and the applications of DirectX and to, to a lesser extent, OpenGL, to graphical programming within these. Delphi 4.0 is essentially a Pascal based code surrounding a formidably complex object orientated system of manipulating the windows API. When starting to produce applications that I thought would benefit from being rendered in the user and eye-friendly windows environment Delphi was the natural choice: I found attempting to learnt C++ from basics a little too painful, and the combination of an immediate and instinctive graphical front-end with my familiarity for the pascal language made acquisition of the tricks of using Delphi fairly rapid. However, Delphi does have several flaws when compared to Turbo Pascal: it is considerably slower, to the point where code written purely in Delphi becomes unviable over a certain limit; and has, in my opinion, vast tracts of backwards compatible code and conversion functions that have little functionality, and indeed make for considerable confusion when attempting to perform even a simple operation, such as opening a file external to the built in system. Having said this, attractive and highly stable 32-bit windows application can be generated in a few minutes, graphical access to forms and features is good and improves massively when using DirectX, and there are copious groups producing units and automatically packages libraries for integration into your programs. For the most part, I use Delphi in the construction of programming tools which are best rendered using all the trappings of windows' environment, easily accessible menus, convenient file management and similar: but also when I require high resoltuion graphics that can be readily linked and embedded, or if I want reliable access to windows file formats: bitmap files have nearly driven me to distraction when attempting to load them in Pascal, but are deceptively convenient as graphics sources in Delphi. In addition, I recently discovered that most Assembler routines, including the TPU commands, can be incorporated into Delphi and are assembled by the integrated inline assembler: providing a method for optimising code in Delphi that must run quickly. Sadly, due to the size of the application (and the increased risk of me being sued), Delphi 4.0 is not available for download: but I am informed a demo can be downloaded from Borland, and the program is readily available commercially. Recently, I have been concerned with DirectX control in Delphi- and so coded examples available for download on this site include my level editor for Trooper II, a JPG style image compressor, my fractal generators, and a DirectX based fractal zooming movie, which is visually spectacular.