Abstract: A charged particle beam device (10) is provided, including a computer operable in response to commands entered by a user of the device to control the device, wherein the device further includes an interface (24) operable to cause data from the computer in the form of short message service (SMS) and/or multimedia message service (MMS) messages to be transmitted to a mobile device (16, 18, 20) via a mobile telephone network (14). The charged particle beam device (10) is operable to receive commands in the form of SMS and/or MMS messages from the mobile telephone (14), and to cause the computer to execute the commands.