You may wish to Google "X-Y table" and visit hobbyist robotic sites.
There is free software available for controlling stepper motors and
some of it is formerly very expensive commercial software from
defunct companies that have released it to the public domain.

The ability to move a lever and have it produce data on the screen
represents to me a "training" function of the software which will
not be available in all programs.  The connection is usually made via
a serial port and the most basic PC or even SBC (single board computer)
may be used as much of this software is MS-DOS or LINUX based and has
a very small footprint.

Jim Divoky