Abstract: An alarm/facility management unit including a housing having a front side and a rear side. The front side includes a liquid crystal display for displaying two lines of up to twenty alphanumeric characters. The front side also includes four control keys which enable a user to access a software program contained within the alarm/facility management unit and perform a number of functions through the program. The front side of the alarm/facility management unit also includes a serial port for enabling communications with a personal computer. The rear side of the alarm/facility management unit includes at least two slots which can receive alarm/facility contact input cards, contact output cards, or serial port expansion cards. These slots can receive alarm/facility cards that provide real-time alarm/facility status on up to sixteen discrete alarm/facility contact inputs. The alarm/facility management unit is scalable from 16 to 128 discrete alarm/facility contact inputs.