[fpc-pascal]telnet proxy help

[ron wilson]

i have been reading this group for about a year and a half, and i am very
impressed with the freedom that people show in helping (even the most
incompetent) programmers, through language and cultural barriers, to solve
their problems.  well, i need some help getting started with a project that
i have absolutely no experience with.  i am pretty familiar with freepascal
console programming and have done quite a bit of hobby coding for a telnet
game called "tradewars 2002".

here is my project:  i need to write a telnet proxy for this game.  it is
100% ansi-text based and my proxy program will maintain a database of game
information by parsing each line of text that passes through the proxy as i
play the game from a standard telnet application.  the target os is windows
(all flavors since win98).  i would like the application to run as a tray
application, or as a small floating menubar only.  my experience in
freepascal is limited to console applications, so i lack experience writing
windows gui code.  i have also never written any code dealing with the
internet.  what i would like to see is a simple state-machine approach to
monitoring the game, parsing the incoming and outgoing text on a
char-by-char basis, and a free-single-user database to manage game
information.

i'm not asking anyone to write the thing FOR me.  what i need is guidance
and a little bit of hand-holding to get me off the ground.  i'm pretty sure
i can figure out the database part.  i need to get my feet wet with the
windows interface (menu and/or tray icon) and the internet connection.

regards,
ron wilson