PURPOSE: To enable nonvisual retrieval in an early stage and to easily retrieve a defective circuit and a registered circuit by collating the connection states of circuit elements and terminals in a circuit to be retrieved with the connection states of each specific circuit.

CONSTITUTION: All circuit elements and the connection points of terminals of mutually connected circuit elements are imparted with optional user set numbers, which are inputted from an input part 1 to generate a coordinate table. Then a CPU 2 converts the user set numbers into predetermined internal numbers in the order of terminals having larger electric features such as the directivity, etc., of the currents of the respective circuit elements. Further, the circuit elements are converted into element symbols determined by their kinds so as to facilitate collation between the circuit elements. Then a retrieval table wherein the circuit elements connected to the respective connection points are made to correspond in the order of the internal numbers is generated and stored in an external storage device 5. Thus, retrieval tables of many specific circuits are stored as respective records to constitute a data base which uses the internal numbers as retrieval keys.