Arduino as a cheap DAQ-I/O alternative

Here is a simple sketch I wrote that allows you to read/write any digital/analog pin. It works by sending simple commands via serial port from the computer to the Arduino board, which replies back on the serial port. Currently I use it by just typing in the commands manually, but somebody could write a program that automates this on the computer side. This could possibly be morphed into something like you are talking about. Feel free to steal the code and hack on it!

http://cosinekitty.com/terminal.pde.txt