Abstract: The disclosed method involves generating cartesian coordinate information representative of the electrode deflection from a rest position of a wire electrode electrical discharge cutting machine, feeding this information into an electronic processing system to convert it to appropriate control instructions, and then feeding the instructions into a drive system, which can then correct the relative positions of the wire electrode and the workpiece accordingly, so that the deflection of the wire electrode does not adversely influence the configuration of the cut made in the workpiece by it.The apparatus for performing the method comprises a wire electrode position pickup system, which can be a photoelectric system picking up the shadow of the wire or a system which measures the spacing between the wire and sensing electrodes by sensing the electrolytic current through a dielectric fluid which fills the space between them.