8. A method of communicating between an end automation device having a full or emulated HTTP server and a personal computer in an Ethernet environment comprising the following computer implemented steps: sending an HTTP request message from said personal computer to a process that encapsulates said HTTP request message in a MODBUS type protocol; transmitting said request message to said automation device; responding to said request message by said automation device with a reply message using the MODBUS type protocol; transmitting said reply message to said process; reformatting said reply message such that the message is encoded in HTTP; sending the reformatted reply message to said personal computer.
13. The method of claim 8 wherein the HTTP request message uses XHTML.