Greetings!

I have a legacy app that I need to keep upgrading while I work on its
successor... I'm planning to move to all open-source and
cross-platform; at this point I'm actually favoring Python. But
meanwhile, I need to make the thing database-aware.

I know from experience that, if anyone responds to this message, 95%
of the responses will simply tell me not to use VB6. I'm working on
that...

I've been trying to RTFM on this, but I can't seem to find an answer -
VB6 won't let me create a reference to fbembed/fbclient.dll; the ODBC
driver on the Firebird website appears to be .NET only... am I out of
luck? Or can I use the Microsoft ADO ver 2.8 that I _do_ have a
reference for, and in that case what sort of connection string do I
use? (And how the heck does the embedded server run if I can't
reference the DLL?)

I'd prefer to use the embedded server 'cause it's so tiny, but it's
not a deal-breaker if I can't. If I can't, however, would someone
please help me construct a working connection string for CS or SS? I
can't find any working examples for VB6, and I'm flummoxed trying to
translate the .NET examples.

Many thanks, sincerely -
Stuck in the Dark Ages