Patent ID: 7246180

Claim:
A method of acquiring correspondence between a node and a terminal device, which uses a system comprising a computer connected to a network and a plurality of said terminal devices connected to said network, wherein when said computer sends a command into said network for operating or stopping an operation of said terminal device, said computer sends out said command with an automatically assigned node number while sequentially changing the automatically assigned node number to a number other than the node number of said computer, said terminal device in of said plurality of terminal devices said network receives said command and, in response, starts operating or stops the operation, said computer monitors said operating or said stopping of the operation and recognizes a correspondence between the node number sent out together with said command and a timing of the terminal device operating or stopping the operation based on the timing of the command thus sent out, and by performing said monitoring and said recognizing for each sequentially changed automatically assigned node number, a correspondence between a plurality of node numbers and said plurality of terminal devices is acquired from said recognition.