Yes! That is what I'm looking forward to, a powerful PC based tester. My thoughts were use a 8255 controller to do something similar to what the 9100 is able to do. Thats similar to what the Gottlieb Sys3 test fixture is (I have one of those as well.) It has a 48 port I/O ISA card that installs in the PC, and a "buffer box" that has the higher capacity drives, and adaptors for all the various connectors. Its a neat system too. Makes a great DMD test station too, rather than having to use one of my working machines.
I would be happy to take pictures of my 9100 setups if anyone is interested. One is a 9100FT, with just the main unit (5MB hard drive based), and a few option cards installed. The other is a 9100A, with the optional programming station (includes an external keyboard and monitor), plus lots of various I/O modules for testing 40, 28, 20, 18, 16, 14 pin I/C's, as well as other probe options. Its slick.
True, once we can ding the 9000 pods from a PC then the world is open, emulate the 9100, custom software etc. Exactly.
How hard would it be for someone to emulate a 9100? Doesn't it have a boatload of I/O? The physical items are the difficult part. Each I/O unit is another "pod".