Hi Bob,
the stepper controller i'm using is not the easydriver. I had a look at that one, but it can only microstep till 1/8th. It also uses a chip from Allegro, the A3967.
The A4983 is at
http://www.littlebirdelectronics.com...r-Carrier.html and is $15. Delivery is from Sydney, so is quick.
the A4983 has 1/6th stepping which in tests has easily noticeable smoothness compared to 1/8th. So I might use that for tracking and micro slew and digitally switch to 1/4th, 1/2 or full stepping for high speed slew which should give me a broad enough range.
I'm pretty sure the PICAXE's have build in DAC's, and from what I've seen, they look very easy to work with.
Voltage regulation made a significant difference with the motor's rotational smoothness, and if you have a look at the decay modes at 1/16th step in the A4983 datasheet, its quite close to a pure sine wave.
I'm not sure if sparkfun has an australian site, but I noticed they were US based.