Filemaker Pro 9 Question

Before I start, it's a database program like Access apparently. I've never used it before. Hopefully someone here has worked with it before. Well, to take on a very important project for someone and make thousands of dollars that I need cuz I'm broke, I need to write an app to interact with an Access databse and a Filemaker Pro 9 database.
I seem to be getting the disctinct message all over the internet that I need Filemaker Pro 9 installed on my computer if I'm going to be able to open a Filemaker Pro database with a VB program. But technically I only need the driver, according to other sources. Well it's like $300 for the software so forget that. All the posts here mentioning the software are less than hopeful or seriously outdated. They're scary actually. I think maybe I could get away with installing the free trial but I haven't tested it. One thing I am sure of is I need something proprietary of theirs on my comp to be able to access one of their databases. What I don't know is if they have some SDK or just driver download. Let's check their website! Oh wait, I kid you not, their entire database developer section is MISSING at the moment! :mad: I cannot find any useful pages that aren't mysteriously missing. I can tell already this is just gonna be fun to work with if the company is that irresponsible.

Btw what is ODBC? Is it like some general format that lots of database software makers use so that VB programmers can access their databases? *crosses his fingers* (according to wikipedia it is) I've seriously never heard of it. Only had the need to use OLEDB and that old Access one. Even if it is some lovely super standard that lets you just connect, part of a connection string for Filemaker Pro I found says: "Driver=FileMaker Pro" As in I need a driver to connect. Oh and an Adobe page says "Note:The way that ODBC works on FileMaker requires that the FileMaker database be up and running on the machine that is hosting the FileMaker database (either Windows or Macintosh)" And yet, on a page I just found now on filemaker's site they claim "On Windows, most ODBC capable applications provide their own ODBC Client Drivers either as part of the install routine, or via their bundled software. Please check with the application provider (Microsoft, Oracle, etc) for these drivers" so like VS comes with filemaker pro drivers? Somehow I doubt that since the word "filemaker" isn't in the entire MSDN library. So what's really up with it? I guess what I'm asking is, how would one typically go about connecting to one of their databases and what software is necessary to do it? Hopefully someone here has been through this filemaker jungle before and can advise me on the way to go about it :D