A hardware independent peripheral control system and method are disclosed. The system comprises:a virtualised controller (20) executable by a processor (35) of a host system (30). The virtualised controller (20), when executed by the host system (30), has an input interface (21), an output interface (22), a processor (23) and a memory (24). The memory (24) encodes data on one or more peripheral specific instructions to control a peripheral (40) attached or connected to the host system (30). The input interface (21) is configured to receive peripheral agnostic instructions from the host system (30). Upon receiving the peripheral agnostic instructions at the input interface (21), the processor (23) of the virtualised controller (20) is configured to generate corresponding peripheral specific instructions in dependence on the data in the memory (24) and output the corresponding peripheral specific instructions via the output interface (22) to the peripheral (40) via a physical connection between the host system (30) and a peripheral (40).