>The other day I picked up a small permanent-magnet stepper motor (about
    >1 inch diameter) and twiddled the shaft idly, when suddenly the thought
    >occurred, what sort of transducer does a stepper motor make?.
    >Hooking it up to the scope, the answer was, a very good one.

Hmm.  So can you also drive the stepper as a motor at "the same time"?
Can you detect (using the "read" circuitry) when the motor has hit a
mechanical stop?

Wondering if a cheap stepper, a PIC, and a couple transistors can replace
expensive and hard-to-find motorized potentiometers?!

BillW