New To Pascal

I am interested in learning Pascal/Delphi. I have
used several free programs created by Sam Francke,
especially his thumbnail creating program called
KD.EXE. All of his programs are small, unique and
utilitarian. I sent him an email the other day
to report a broken link on his home page. I told
him I enjoyed his programs and did he program in
C++. He answered that he programs in Delphi.
Another Francke program I often use is his
CPick.Exe. It's a tiny windows program which
allows one to click and drag with mouse to
anywhere on the screen and it'll give you the
RGB and HTML bgcolor. Very useful.

I am winding up the genealogy work I have been
immersed in for the past five years and am
anxious to learn another programming language.
I'm still interested in QB64 but I tend to
shy away from FreeBASIC. I also use AutoIt
for small utility programs. I am currently
learning and using Emergence BASIC of Ionic
Software, but the literal power of Pascal is
very attractive. Since it's been around for
a long while, there are many tutorials,
code snippits and the like everywhere on
the net.

I began checking the internet about this programming
language and found, to my horror, that Borland
Delphi costs thousands of dollars. Then I found
out about FPC.

I found a great internet Pascal site:
http://www.freebyte.com/programming/delphi/

Sam Francke's home page. Check it out:
http://home.hccnet.nl/s.j.francke/software/software.htm

If anyone has any suggestions, I'd be proud to
hear them.

Regards, Don Smith