Just stumbled onto this thread, and I too am investigating using visual basic express 2008 to control stepper motors via inpout.dll and the printer port and am also in the beginning stages of coming up to speed on visual basic. (I've converted 2 minilathes which is documented is the mini lathe section but using mach2). My current project is tracking solar collectors, and I visualize using visual basic and outputting az & el data from a data base to move the collector every 15 minutes or so. With the price of electric going up I want to develope a tracking scheme where I can drive multiple collectors and PV panels (the price of the PV is suppose to drop in the near future because of some new technology). By tracking the sun, the effeciency of the panel can increase some %50 percent. By tracking using calculations, instead of actually tracking the sun, you are able to track even during cloudy days on the days when you are only able to catch a little sun here and there.
So, anyway maybe we can keep this thread going for a little while longer.
Ron