Patent ID: 7937496

Claim:
A control terminal apparatus, comprising: a wide area network communication section capable of being connected, via a wide area network, to a local control system including a control unit for controlling a control object in accordance with a control program, and a control display apparatus for communicating with the control unit via a serial interface so as to display or control a control state of the control unit; a control program generator configured to generate the control program; and a serial port simulator for presetting which local control system having a control unit that is to receive the control program, and for receiving, as a proxy of a serial port, the control program for the control unit which the control program generator is about to output to the serial port, and transmitting, to the local control system, instruction data indicating the control program thus received and the control unit to receive the control program thus received, so as to instruct the wide area network communication section to give an instruction for updating the control program for the control unit to receive the control program thus received, while the control unit is not directly connected to the serial port simulator via the serial port; wherein the local control system includes a control host computer of communicating with the control display apparatus via a network, the control host computer includes a setting section for managing a control display apparatus connected to the network, and the serial port simulator (i) communicates with the control host computer of the local control system in advance and looks UP memory contents of the setting section of the control host computer, (ii) displays choices of the control display apparatus and allows a user to specify the control display apparatus connected to the control unit to receive the control program, and (iii) transmits, to the wide area network communication section, an identifier indicative of the specified control display apparatus and of the control unit connected to the specified control display apparatus and a data string including a control program itself as the instruction data.