Here's what I cobbled together in the Dev Guide about ODBC data sources,
just winging it until you were ready to open the closet door. Some
question whether Network Protocol would be included. Please whack
until the following fits:

Configuring and using ODBC data sources
---------------------------------------
Use the ODBC Administrator to configure data sources. To access the ODBC
Administrator on Windows machines, display the Control Panel and choose
ODBC (in some cases, it appears as “32-Bit ODBC Administrator” or ODBC
Data Source Administrator” or “ODBC Data Sources”).
A user data source is a data source visible to the user, whereas a
system data source is visible to the system.

Configuring data sources
------------------------
Select Start | Settings | Control Panel and double-click the ODBC
entry. (If you have the ODBC SDK installed, you can run the utility
called “32bit ODBC Administrator” instead.) The “ODBC Data Source
Administrator” window opens.
On the User DSN tab, click Add. The “Create New Data Source” window
opens.
Select the InterBase ODBC driver and click Finish. The “InterBase ODBC
Configuration” window opens.
Enter the following information:
Data Source Name Make up a name for your data source.
Description A description of the data source (not required).
Network Protocol Choose the protocol from the drop-down list.
Database Full physical path to the database, including the
database name.
Server Server name. If you choose the protocol
“local”, this will default to the local server.
Username Your database user name, or SYSDBA.
Password The database password corresponding to Username.

Optionally, click Advanced and fill in CharacterSet and Roles
information.
Click OK to return to the “ODBC Data Source Administrator” window. You
should see the data source you just added, listed under User Data
Sources.

>>> I didn't make up the following; either it was there or I found it somewhere else:

Connecting from Delphi using the ODBC data source
-------------------------------------------------
ODBC connection from Delphi is very similar to connecting using BDE from
Delphi. The following example shows connecting using the Tquery
component, and also displaying the results of an SQL statement.
Drop a Tquery, a Tdatasource, and a Tdbgrid component on a Delphi form.
Set the following properties for the Tquery component:
DatabaseName Pick from the list the data source name created using ODBC
Administrator.
SQL Enter the SQL statement to be executed. For example:
"SELECT * FROM Table1".
Active Set to True to connect; supply user name and password on
connection.

Set the following property for the TDatasource component:
Data Set Set to the name of the TQuery component, or "query1" in this
case.

Set the following property for the TDBGrid component:
Data Source Set to the name of the TDatasource component, or "data
source1" in this case.

Inspect the returned results from the SELECT statement, in the DBGrid
area.