Yes. You can, but there are some requirements and limitations:

• you must have installed Oracle8 client software;
• you can't use Oracle8 specific features, such as data types BLOB/CLOB/BFILE, RETURNING phrase;
• you can't use TOCIStoredProc;
• you can't use TOCITransactionManager.

Yes. That is easy. First at all take a look on demo application Services. Main properties there are in TOCIDatabase:

• SilentMode = True 
• InitModes = [dmThreaded]

For that you should use: 

• - MIDAS 3 technology; 
• - or ASTA. 

NCOCI8 has buildin support for that tools. Also you probably can use something other tool, but in that case you will create support for this tool. For details, about how to setup MIDAS server, see demo project MIDAS.

You have too many open cursors. NCOCI8 opens cursor each time, when call to Open / Prepare happens. You have follows options to solve this issue:

1. Close and UnPrepare unused TOCIQuery / TOCIStoredProc (see Q 5.1); 
2. Set OPEN_CURSORS to some greater value 
3. Set TOCIDataSet.Disconnectable = True for datasets, that NCOCI8 can Close/Unprepare without problems. And set TOCIDatabase.MaxCursors to maximum allowed count of open cursors. When count of prepared TOCIDataSet will grow up to TOCIDatabase.MaxCursors, NCOCI8 will run automatic dataset disconnection process.