It seems nothing suitable (functionality, freeware) exists on the web

..
So I decided to write my own

.
Attached is the GUI example of what it should look like (currently it does nothing useful.. apart from keeping up appearances

).
It will control the stepper motor (step-direction, or 4-phase unipolar),
The position of focuser will be saved into a file... and that's about it.
When finished, I will post it here. Hopefully it will work on XP machines.
Any comments?
EDIT: sample program removed and replaced with working version later in the thread