A system and method for integrating terminal-based legacy mainframe applications through data stream objectification into a distributed object system. The mainframe application's terminal data stream is reinterpreted as a set of well-defined state objects representing any identifiable portion or accumulation of either terminal commands or data within the data stream. The state objects are combined with a set of state transition rules to create a finite state machine, which accurately describes the behavior of the application, the application of all existing busing logic, and access to all the data elements. Any required set of data elements can then be defined and either accessed or updated through a variety of methodologies without redefining, re-implementing, or migrating any existing data or business rules.