Perhaps the real "big mighty million dollar question" is more like:- "who has the mighty million dollars to fund all that"?

Meanwhile, from what I remember Java and C++ are quite similar. So any decent programmer who is adept in one shouldn't have too much trouble with the other.
"Do we have any developers who can code in C++ or Java?" No doubt there are, but would they be happy to commit to years of work for little or no reward (apart from the "intellectual challenge" -
aka "fun" to be had)? Somehow I doubt it. But keep looking, Tim ... you never know!
Myself, I would probably approach things a little differently:- in the first instance, I would get hold of a handfull of device output protocols, and see what I could do with those. After all, it is often (usually) only when you become immersed in thorny
minutiae that a way forward begins to emerge from the murky depths (a brief parting of the mists ... whatever).

So perhaps one way to kick it off would be to encourage busy biomeds to contribute details of the comms outputs for the equipment they are familiar with? You know, start (build) the library.
