
A look back: The Bloomberg Keyboard (2017) - bookofjoe
https://www.bloomberg.com/professional/blog/look-back-bloomberg-keyboard/
======
Phillipharryt
"The Grid" is a fascinating machine. If you're interested in it the full name
is the GRiD Compass 1101. It used a display I've never seen on any laptop
before, an electroluminescent monochrome one, really weird tech there. It's
primarily used in static displays like car dashboards because it's very
unlikely to "burn out" (not even sure it's possible). I've never seen them on
dynamic displays before.

More fun facts, it was used in space, and perhaps even as the "nuclear
football".

~~~
jjtheblunt
It looks like the PLATO system plasma displays that were very old when I was
in undergrad in the late 80s.

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

~~~
smacktoward
Yeah, it reminded me of the gas-plasma monochrome displays that were common on
"luggable" PCs in the late '80s (like this one:
[https://jshorney.incolor.com/p70.htm](https://jshorney.incolor.com/p70.htm)).

They were much lighter than a comparable size CRT, which was the display
solution used on the original luggables from companies like Osborne and
Compaq. But that was about the only good thing that could be said about them.

------
mruts
I worked at a firm who’s stated goal was for all the street to have the
Terminal on one monitor and our product on the other. Our application was
sophisticated and advanced, but it was a web app. The Bloomberg didn’t really
do what the app did, but it felt so much better. Responsive, native, dense,
and has keybindings. Using the Terminal makes you feel powerful and in
control: it is extension of yourself.

Our app on the other hand looked and felt like all the other “modern” web
apps: low information density, slow, no keybindings, and frustrating. Also it
logged you out every 30 minutes! It was a total joke and we had a hard time
getting people to use the product.

I think companies make the mistake on just focusing on features, especially
with web apps. Performance is absolutely critical and the #1 prerequisite for
a good product. But despite research and studies on how users care about
performance a lot, developers don’t seem to. Every repeats mantras like
“programmer time is more important”, “... the root of all evil”, “just wait a
year or two and your app will be 2x faster!”, etc etc.

With the end of exponentially increasing single threaded performance, I think
developers are recently starting to realize how valuable performance is.
Hopefully this trend continues and we software engineers start making software
we are actually proud of.

The current state of development and developers is inexcusable and sad. The
slow crap we make is honestly sickening.

------
Tempest1981
It has fractions of 1/2, /4, /8, /32, /64\. But not /16.

There must be an interesting reason why, anybody know?

~~~
hapless
There’s a 1/16 on there.

I assume it is a historical oddity. NYSE prices were done in fractions up
until a few years ago.

~~~
twic
Bond futures still are [1]:

* Minimum Price Fluctuation: One thirty-second (1/32) of one point ($31.25), except for intermonth spreads, where the minimum price fluctuation shall be one-quarter of one thirty-second of one point ($7.8125 per contract).*

As are some bond-like derivatives, eg MAC swap futures, which are quoted in
quarters of thirty-seconds [2]. The way prices are written out is maddening -
consider yesterday's settle [3]:

107'247

This means 107 and 24.75 thirty-seconds!

[1] [https://www.cmegroup.com/trading/interest-rates/us-
treasury/...](https://www.cmegroup.com/trading/interest-rates/us-
treasury/30-year-us-treasury-bond_contract_specifications.html)

[2] [https://www.cmegroup.com/trading/interest-rates/swap-
futures...](https://www.cmegroup.com/trading/interest-rates/swap-
futures/5-year-usd-mac-swap_contract_specifications.html)

[3] [https://www.cmegroup.com/trading/interest-rates/swap-
futures...](https://www.cmegroup.com/trading/interest-rates/swap-
futures/5-year-usd-mac-swap_quotes_globex.html)

------
skissane
I'd love to know what technologies the Bloomberg Terminal, and the host side,
were originally implemented with, back when they started in the 1980s. I've
searched for information on this topic, but haven't had much luck finding
answers.

~~~
macdice
They used
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interdata_7/32_and_8/32](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interdata_7/32_and_8/32)
and the Interdata OS/32 operating system. They wrote all the code in Fortran.
There is a clue about the rationale for that in the Bloomberg on Bloomberg
book: from memory it's something like that they didn't want the (now defunct)
investment bank they'd come from to think they'd copied anything so they used
a different OS and language. I think they did some pretty interesting things
with their own networking technology to get all the market data around the
place back then but I know nothing about any of that.

One interesting thing about the Interdata systems is that they were the first
non-PDPs to run Unix, via a guerilla porting project done at a university in
Australia. Bloomberg used the native OS/32 though, and somewhere there is a
paper from that Australian university that gives a scathing review of it. Some
kind of timesharing, but with a single console where all output would appear.
That made me laugh, because the 'console room' was Bloomberg lingo for a kind
of sysadmin group.

Later Bloomberg used a lot of different commercial Unix variants. At least
HP/UX, AIX, Solaris and RHEL are used, and a lot of C++, Javascript and other
languages. There is still plenty of older code from the Interdata OS/32 days
in service though and a lot of unusual system control scripts and commands
from that defunct system. I guess (?) it's probably nearly all Linux by now
though!

~~~
JackFr
I was tasked with calculating OAS durations on callable agency bonds with the
Bloomberg API in Perl in the 90's. Basically I'd take the price and use the
API to get the OAS, then bump the OAS up and down a basis point, calculate
price up and price down and get the difference.

The problem was sporadically I'd get a price back that was out of line. It
would match to the 5th or 6th decimal, but then would diverge. I could make
the same call 10 times in a row and the price would be identical 8 times, but
2 others it would be different in the 5th or 6th decimals. Since I was taking
the difference of two prices which were relatively close otherwise, this would
wreck havoc with my results.

Bloomberg support was always quick with a response, but often the first level
support had no idea what they were talking about. For two weeks they kept
insisting that because the yield curve I was pricing with was live, what I was
seeing was because of market moves. Finally I got to someone who was on the
implementation team for that bit of code, and he explained that they had both
Data General and Perkin Elmer (Interdata) machines supporting that function,
and the answers depended on which architecture handled the response.

~~~
raldi
When I worked there (2003-2007), first level support was where new hires
learned the ropes before moving on to their actual assignments.

It was an amazing way to keep employees well in touch with customers' needs,
and at least at the time the program seemed to be well-enough run to deliver
great customer support. Sorry to hear your experience was different.

------
iamleppert
The last one is the most uninspired & least interesting of the bunch.

~~~
smacktoward
The article works best if you read it as a tale of a company being dragged,
completely unwillingly, into working the same way as the rest of the world
does. It starts off with all these funky ideas, and slowly devolves into a
bog-standard keyboard with a few extra keys stuck on.

~~~
akhilcacharya
It still has some interesting features though!

It includes a slot for a Biometric auth unit (B-Unit).

------
api_or_ipa
Any idea what the switch mechanisms look like? I'd like to dream that you can
customize your keyboard with an array of cherry switches to your own
preference.

~~~
frutiger
The big white one and the current black one are both rubber domes. I’d used
the big grey one about 10 years ago. I want to say they felt different but I’m
pretty sure they’re rubber domes too.

------
Epopeehief54
I expected that "timeline" to end in the late 90s but huh, that is quite
impressive that they still have a market for those things.

~~~
dx034
They make a lot of sense for terminal users. And the newest version is
actually a very decent keyboard, so you don't have an upside by using another
one. Many departments that have some terminals will just use those at every
computer so that employees with a terminal license don't have to change
hardware if they swap places (since Bloomberg anywhere, licenses are on a per-
person basis, not bound to the computer).

------
anonu
The fingerprint scanner was always a curious addition to me. It seemed
completely useless other than being a great way to justify the $25k spend a
year on a terminal.

I'm also very curious as to whether it actually works. Is the biometric
authentication properly configured to actually be more secure?

~~~
bvod
The fingerprint scanner is intended to benefit the company, not the users. It
makes it significantly more difficult to share an account, which protects
Bloomberg's $24,000 / user / year revenue.

~~~
pvitz
One doesn't pay per user, but only for the terminal. I.e. you could have
thousands of users per terminal. Per user licenses are called "Bloomberg
Anywhere" which is quite similar to Refinitiv's EIKON.

------
devereaux
Is anyone using a 2004 era CTB100 at home?

I love the extra buttons and that it comes with a speaker for voice chat.

I'm considering using one for programming, with the extra buttons remapped.

~~~
jzwinck
Quite a few of the keys have awkward action with excess stiction. Not great
for programming (and indeed many Bloomberg programmers used other keyboards
when that one was current).

~~~
devereaux
excess stiction - so you means the keys requires a lot of strength to be
activated.

Could it be the plastic getting older and less soft?

------
unixhero
The latest iteration is rather underwhelming. I hope they're going back to
some bigger designs again!

