how is the ra2 normals coming along? has anyone gone back to working on them since last time?

here's my progress on the windows conversion of my program: i'm trying to decide what compiler to get since a new one just came out from microsoft. i don't even know what it is called. if i get it, is there someone who has made windows games who can tell me exactly all the names of the functions for hardware i will need? i need functions so i can do timer, keyboard, and mouse inputs and graphics output. if someone doesn't tell me the names of the functions, you can expect to wait for Fall 2010 (tentative release date) for the windows version of 3ds2vxl. however if i am told the functions names you can expect the conversion within the same day.