
A look back: The Bloomberg Keyboard (2017) - dmmalam
https://www.bloomberg.com/professional/blog/look-back-bloomberg-keyboard/
======
arianvanp
My favourite trade floor keyboard I Own is definitely the Wey. Fully
programmable. Swappable modules for Bloomberg and Reuters. Picked the thing up
at a yard sale and recently locked myself out of the thing by accident

[https://youtu.be/e-5DDDd3Qzw](https://youtu.be/e-5DDDd3Qzw)

~~~
ljoshua
What the what?? That is one of the most intense things I've seen in a while!
Three full color screens on a keyboard... woah.

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TimMurnaghan
Bloomerg also use the keyboard as a "non-tariff barrier". As a systems
integrator trying to work with their systems in the 90s they insisted that we
buy a batch of a specific pantone gold colour for our keycaps.

So for people looking for easier to use data sources - even with more modern
data feeds they're heavily license restricted and there's a lot of proprietary
lock-in.

------
audiometry
That current “starboard” keyboard is atrocious. Over the last couple years
I’ve killed probably five of them with trivial levels of coffee spills. They
seem super-sensitive to any kind of debris. Way more than any other keyboards
I use, including those of laptops.

~~~
phyalow
We keep a running tally on our trading desk on how many starboard keyboards we
each go through a year. Average seems to be about 3 per person! I did 5 last
year, although one did get dirty and I just wanted a replacement hehe. Q/A
must be terrible.

~~~
jnichols35
I have a stack of new ones next to my desk at work. It feels like not even a
day goes by that I have to replace one. The typical culprit is coffee,
otherwise the keys fall off with relative ease.

~~~
comboy
A day? Have you guys considered putting coffee in a place where you don't
spill it so easily?

~~~
crottypeter
I'm guessing jnichols35 does IT support in a large-ish office?

~~~
jnichols35
That is correct, I just got a ticket in for another keyboard replacement due
to a key popping off.

Edit: This is a new one for me
[https://imgur.com/gallery/QTFMw2D](https://imgur.com/gallery/QTFMw2D)

~~~
comboy
So it's like, not just keycap? It's gone for good now?

I guess there's no incentive to make them more durable. You know this better
than me, but I doubt corpos care about the cost of replacing those keyboards.

~~~
jnichols35
Just after I updated that comment I got another keyboard with multiple keys
missing. I believe the keyboards are replaced for free as part of licensing
them out.

I worked IT for a High School and kids would tear laptop keyboards apart. The
school wouldn't replace them so I had to do my best to fix them. When I saw a
keycap come off when I started here and they said replace the whole board I
sighed with so much relief.

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RyanShook
Is there any open alternative to a Bloomberg terminal? With Google Finance now
gone I’d like to get see what is out there for free.

~~~
evrydayhustling
Data aggregation is how the Terminal built its user-base, but messaging is
what actually keeps people there. Bloomberg Chat is where most large trades
get negotiated -- so if you don't have a login, you don't really have an
identity as a trader. Makes it hard to switch.

It's a terrific example of network effect as moat. Several years ago, six of
the largest banks got together to fund Symphony as a Bloomberg-killing chat
tool [1]. More than $100M invested later, it's still only successfully
competing with Bloomberg for _internal_ chat at financial firms [2]. Inter-
company chats are still happening mainly on full price terminals that costs
100x what Symphony costs for a seat.

[1] [https://symphony.com/press/releases/consortium-leading-
finan...](https://symphony.com/press/releases/consortium-leading-financial-
firms-invest-new-communication-workflow-platform) [2]
[https://www.ft.com/content/f16d73ee-a910-11e7-ab55-27219df83...](https://www.ft.com/content/f16d73ee-a910-11e7-ab55-27219df83c97)

~~~
simonbyrne
An interesting exception is the energy sector, which used Yahoo Messenger
until it was shutdown: [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-oil-traders-yahoo-
idUSKCN...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-oil-traders-yahoo-
idUSKCN10J0SO)

~~~
ren01r
I'm curious what they use now.

~~~
evrydayhustling
WhatsApp is huge. It's an international market and end end encryption is
valued.

~~~
vostok
My firm prohibits whatsapp for business use and I know it's not the only one.

~~~
evrydayhustling
Yes it's a compliance nightmare. Context for my WhatsApp comment is SE Asian
market if that makes a difference. Also curious if prohibitions are effective
or if people still negotiate on other channels and then document on official
one.

~~~
vostok
At least in my products negotiation really does happen over compliance
approved channels.

------
sigfubar
Bloomberg excels at many things, but most of all it squarely nails the UX for
users who're getting things done for a living. I really miss my BB keyboard;
but I'm happy to still enjoy the Bloomberg font in my regular Unix terminal.

~~~
datanut
Any details about the font? Download links?

~~~
Q6T46nT668w6i3m
[http://www.bloomberg.com/professional/systems-
support/downlo...](http://www.bloomberg.com/professional/systems-
support/downloads/)

~~~
thristian
There's an installer, but it won't install unless you already have the full
Bloomberg Terminal suite installed.

~~~
noir_lord
I have the font which I yanked from one of their pieces of software Year’s
ago, it’s a decent font, can’t share for obvious reasons.

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ohstopitu
I truly do wish we have an open source / SaaS version of the bloomberg
B-Unit[0].

I would easily pay $10/m for a "personal" version and I know companies that
would pay 2x - 3x that for enterprise deployment. Although to an extent - it's
redundant now that we have phones with biometric authentication.

[0] -
[https://www.bloomberg.com/professional/support/b-unit/](https://www.bloomberg.com/professional/support/b-unit/)

~~~
zeth___
>I would easily pay $10/m for a "personal" version and I know companies that
would pay 2x - 3x that for enterprise deployment. Although to an extent - it's
redundant now that we have phones with biometric authentication.

You're off by a factor of 10 on how much a service like that will cost,
especially in enterprise.

------
Yetanfou
That 1995 infrared keyboard seems to be exactly the same as the one used with
the Virgin Webplayer [1], an internet appliance which Virgin peddled in the
late 90's. I have a few of these around here, used one of them to create a
solar-powered waterproof and possibly bullet-proof machine to take with me on
a canoe expedition from Whitehorse to the Bering strait. Another one was used
as a file server for about 6 years, yet another one as a remote camera
monitoring terminal to keep watch over what happens in the barn. With 200 MHz
of Cyrus MediaGX 'power' (comparable to a 125 MHz Pentium) it wasn't the
fastest of machines but it still works for these purposes.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Webplayer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virgin_Webplayer)

------
plg
A question about keyboards in general - don't you find that keyboards with
numeric keypads are so wide, that the mouse has to sit at such a distance
laterally, that it strains your wrist to use the mouse?

~~~
rjsw
My mouse is to the left of my keyboard, are there any right-handed programmers
?

~~~
newguynewguy
No, us righties just tape stuff from stack overflow together. I don't think
that counts.

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bonaldi
Note that they've got the patent for keyboards with speakers in, which is why
you can't get them anywhere else.

1

~~~
smnrchrds
According to the article, their first speaker-integrated keyboard was released
in 1992. That's 26 years ago. Patent term is only 20 years in the US. The
patent must have expired long ago.

~~~
nereye
Compaq released a keyboard with speaker in 1994 (Vocalyst keyboard, as part of
the Deskpro XL system).

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fermienrico
I really love vintage computer design. Looking at these Bloomberg keyboards,
although made for a high-end market, makes me wish we had good computer
hardware today. Besides Apple/Microsoft/Thinkpads, I pretty much dislike every
single piece of computer hardware out there.

Oh, and I want to see an complete and utter cessation of RGB lighting in
computer products.

~~~
Bluestrike2
Besides my chair (a HM Embody whose price I still don't like thinking about),
the most comfortable/enjoyable thing I've ever bought for my work was my first
mechanical keyboard, a Vortex Pok3r 60% keyboard with a set of SA profile
keycaps. A good keyboard makes a world of difference. At the moment, I'm
actually in the middle of building a custom 65% keyboard. Just waiting on the
PCB to arrive after the first one was damaged in transit.

It's a bug. Once you get bit, you'll gladly jump down the keyboard rabbit
hole.

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scandox
Looking at the later keyboards reminds one how much common ground there is
between traders and gamers....pscyhologically speaking.

~~~
ksk
I don't think its psychological, having dedicated keys is better for almost
all applications than having to re-purpose a general purpose input device.

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dillondoyle
Somewhat interesting video from Bloomberg on their hardware, starts with a bit
of historical footage:
[https://vimeo.com/90701077](https://vimeo.com/90701077)

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joebergeron
Can't help but think that the 1996 models look a bit like the old little toy
Casio keyboards from back in the day, complete with tinny speakers protected
by plastic grating. :-)

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Yizahi
<offtopic>

Anyone else finds their blog hideous?

[https://imgur.com/a/m8wtR1F](https://imgur.com/a/m8wtR1F)

~~~
antjanus
not that part but their header disappearing and reappearing is annoying. I'm
on a smallish laptop screen, scrolling up to look at a picture immediately
results in less space to read and covering the photo I just scrolled up to
see.

So I have to scroll up to the photo, and then scroll down a little to make the
header disappear.

------
alexeiz
2004 "Centerboard" and 2008 "Freeboard" were abominations. I don't know about
traders but no self-respecting programmer at Bloomberg used these keyboard.
Most replaced them with Microsoft Ergonomic or anything else to make typing
bearable.

------
dmix
Anyone in the finance industry know why the keyboard would require speakers?
Did the terminals use audio to deliver financial information or news reports?

~~~
apaprocki
The keyboards had speakers because at that time not many business PCs had
speakers connected if they had soundcards. This provided a physical volume
slider to listen to news out loud as well as a headphone/mic jack for private
listening. Later uses allowed using the mic for squawkbox like functionality
communicating between employees on various desks. The Terminal has had
streaming audio and video since forever now. (Audio use cases involve things
like earnings calls, investor relations as well as news.) Aside from A/V, the
Terminal also has had text to speech for news for a very long time as well.

------
unixhero
What a great review of the keyboards. This is such exquisite exotica in my
view.

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farhang
Weirdly long gap in the visual story between 1996 & 2004

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cube00
Some of the early versions look like they were really trying to do some great
innovation but disappointedly after all this time ended up at an IBM style
keyboard that was around in the 80s.

