Lathe threading

I just got home from Wisconsin with a Hardinge HNC lathe. The seller said
it came from a university and had less than 50 hours on it. It appears to
have less than 10 hours on it. All the tooling in the turret is from the
original purchase invoice and some have never cut anything. No wear marks
on the toolholder nuts. No stains on the lexan guards. The chip pan has no
scratches in the paint. The controller doesn't even have dust on the
cooling fans blades.

However, the controller is a GE550 - a real dog even if it is like new.

Has anyone developed a step/direction lathe control program yet? None of
the software I am aware of has threading capabilities. The one possible
exception is Ahha, but nobody seems to know if their threading function
works.

Doug