Thanks a lot guys, you've given me a lot to research.
I have what might be a stupid question now, assuming I go with an Arduino, but I'm a newb so please excuse me. I understand that traditionally you write programs which you upload to an Arduino controller. That's cool for robots or whatever.
But is it possible to write a program that merely reads A/D input (pots) from the Arduino board and into a PC program at run-time? So, as I fiddle with these pots, I can read the values from a program on the PC?