Quotron II: An Early Multiprogrammed Multiprocessor for the Communication of Stock Market Data

The first stock market quotation systems were installed in brokers´ offices in 1960 by Scantlin Electronics, Inc (SEI). These primitive, magnetic tape based systems were enthusiastically received, and in the next two years some 800 were installed. However, SEI´s success attracted competition, which forced the company in late 1962 to inaugurate a new service based on a four-CPU Control Data 160A computer system located in New York City. This system processed and stored market data, meanwhile receiving requests and transmitting replies on eight 2000 bps Dataphone(tm) lines to SEI offices in some 20 cities. Low speed lines in those cities connected the offices to SE/ keyboard-printers on the brokers´ desks.