An updatable, single fault impervious integrated control and monitoring system (ICMS) for airfield avionics comprising at least a pair of I/O Processors connected in parallel by two separate networks to each of a) a plurality of workstations, preferably including a Master Workstation, and b) one or more Equipment I/O Interface backplanes; said one or more Equipment I/O Interface backplanes comprising one or more programmable Equipment I/O Interface circuit card plugged therein and being structured to be programmed to bidirectionally translate at least one of a plurality of signal types required for control and monitoring of avionic equipment and convert said at least one of a plurality of signal types to and from a common signal type usable by the I/O Processors. Methods of making and using the updatable, single fault impervious ICMS are also described.