Minicomputers in Security Dealing

There are many business applications which fit far better the terminology and techniques of industrial control than they do that of conventional data processing. A dealer in any commodity whose price is continually fluctuating, be it money, stocks, or physical supplies, requires real-time information about the deals of his colleagues and competitors and the state of the market: he requires on-stream processing of this continually changing information against an on-line file system of historic data acquired about the market. His communication needs are best satisfied by interaction through visual displays even though his data processing requirements are those generally associated with small batch-processing EDP machines.