The invention pertains to a control system (46) for controlling the supply of power to a motor (12) to produce plugging electrical braking and current limit control, including a circuit (60) for controlling the direction of energization of the motor (12), a circuit (88) for generating digital numbers representing command motor speeds, a circuit (14) for generating a data signal representing a plugging condition, a programmable data processor (18) for generating pulse trains in dependence on the plugging condition, and a power transistor element (40) for coupling power to the motor (12) in response to the pulse trains. By using state-of-the-art digital, integrated circuit and software technology, prior, essentially linear or discrete component technology, which is relatively unreliable, expensive and slow, need not be used.