Patent ID: 8683364

Claim:
A system for graphical interconnection of a hardware signal of a controller device having a plurality of terminals, comprising: a processor unit for connection to the device, the processing unit having a keyboard and a mouse; a display device with a graphical user interface having a first area and a second area; a schematic presentation of the device in the first area, each device terminal displayed in accordance with a respective position on the device and provided with a logical address corresponding to an address convention used by the system to assign a hardware signal to the logical address; and a linking mechanism for logically linking the hardware signal assigned to the logical address with a program element of a programming environment presented in the second area, wherein a logical address of a terminal representation displayed in the first area corresponding to a hardware signal to be interconnected is selected, dragged, and dropped onto the program element, and wherein the dropped address is displayed with the program element in the second area, wherein a user-editable symbolic representation of the logical address is displayed together with the logical address, wherein the user-editable symbolic representation of the logical address is edited by clicking on the displayed terminal representation corresponding to the hardware signal to be interconnected, wherein the dropping of the representation of the selected terminal onto the program element causes the hardware signal to be logically linked via the logical address with the program element without a user having to know the address convention used by the system.