Abstract: A system and method is provided for interfacing a radio frequency identification (RFID) device with a legacy terminal (i.e., an existing terminal). In one embodiment of the present invention, an RFID base station is adapted to interrogate an RFID transponder (tag) and a receiving terminal is adapted to communicate with the RFID base station using an RFID protocol and a legacy terminal using a standard terminal emulation protocol. In this embodiment, the base station is adapted to transmit (or receive) information to (or from) the tag. The information received is then transmitted to the receiving terminal, where it is provided to the legacy terminal via standard terminal emulation protocol. In another embodiment of the present invention, the legacy terminal is adapted to imbed (and the receiving terminal is adapted to recognized) “special” control characters in an emulation data string. By using “special” control characters (i.e.