This paper is written to honor Csaba Horváth and to remember his work on Reversed Phase Chromatography, (RPC) a theoretical fundament of the mechanism of retention on nonpolar stationary phases, called the "Solvophobic Theory" from the subjective point of view of the author. The paper is trying to compile a few stations in the development of this important theory, which is valid more than ever and look out for its consequences in developing robust methods for routine work, especially in the daily applications of RPC in industrial settings worldwide. It was Horváth, who laid the fundaments of this valuable technique, which makes the application of RPC to a still growing use in scientific research and in pharmaceutical and chemical production. Although the Solvophobic Theory of RPC was reflecting only a part of Horváth's scientific work, the impact of RPC in life science is tremendous and the technique RPC is today one of the most popular, most widely used tools in analytical chemistry and will remain for long time in use due to its stability and to its robustness.

The separation of anionic, cationic, and neutral drugs in microemulsion electrokinetic chromatography (MEEKC) was studied. The concentration of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS, surfactant) and 2-propanol (organic solvent) was varied in a three-level full factorial design. 29 different model substances were chosen with different hydrophobicities and charges (neutral, positive, and negative).

DryLab is used for the optimization of a model drug candidate and its degradation products. Accuracy of DryLab predicted retention times and resolution is compared with experimental values.

Multi-linear gradients have not been widely used in general-purpose HPLC in part because of experimental inconvenience in method development. Even with the use of computer modeling, identifying an optimum set of breakpoints has been done primarily by trial and error. Combining a spreadsheet with controllable chromatography modeling software has allowed to implement a systematic approach to bi- and tri-linear gradient optimization.

The development of the DryLab Software is a special achievement in analytical HPLC, which took place in the last 16 years. This paper tries to collect historical building stones and fundaments, which were laid down by the eminent work of Lloyd Snyder, John Dolan, Tom Jupille and many other enthusiastic scientist, from which DryLab has been put together to its state, where it is today. DryLab, being always a subject to changes, according to the needs of the user, never stopped to go on. Under the force of an ever changing science market, the development team of DryLab had to consider not just scientific improvements, but also new technological achievements, such as the introduction of Windows 1.0 and 3.1, later Windows NT and Windows 2000. The recent availability of new 32 bit program-ming tools allowed to carry out calculations of chromatograms much faster, to be able to show peak movements, which result of slight changes - for example - in eluent pH. DryLab is a great success of an interdisciplinary and intercontinental cooperation of many scientists.

For ionizable compounds such as organic acids, best results were obtained recently with simultaneous optimization of %B and pH, regardless of ionic strength or temperature. Changes in the pH of eluent A, adjusted to bracket the pK-values of acids (works also for bases and zwitterions), help to understand changes in critical resolution values due to shifts in peak positions.