DMX Theatre Lighting Control

Dear All, I am working on an application to use a moving head theatre lantern (e.g. Martin MAC300) as a remotely controlled followspot.

Currently I only have a mock up, in Excel, that rotates graphical representations of the lantern as the mouse is moved over a control area (a large plain grey image control); this is just to prove that I've got the maths right and, being familiar with Excel, I can quickly change the user interface.

The next step is probably to relearn some VB (not touched since 1999!) however I was wondering if anyone out there has used Excel with the ENTTEC Open DMX USB Interface http://www.enttec.com/index.php?main_menu=Products&prod=70303&show=description&name=opendmxusb or with any other similar USB device though not necessarily in a lighting application. VB drivers are avialable but can they be accessed from within Excel's VBA? Is Excel97 and a 1.5GHz Laptop going to be fast enough? So many questions so little time (play starts on 25th April 2007 but even if I miss that date I am still keen to keep going as far I can with this).