Back when i started, before the Internet, that was pretty much how it was done. You also phoned in your orders.
I started in 1991 with Quick and Riley phone call buy and sell. My dad was a computer analyst and i had bought a IBM style PC. Believe it or not ..at that time there was a wall street data feed from cable tv that morningstar sold to the cable providers. It may have been via early CNBC ticker feeds. But I was able to subscribe to the service called QuoTrek wallstreet quotes/graphs. There was also a Signal and EOD quote service. You could get real-time or 15 minute delayed. It was from Data Broadcast Corp San Mateo, CA and it came with a coaxial PC card which I plugged into the 8086 PC (not sure if they had a modem service).
Of course I bought stock...but I also learned to daytrade OEX options. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index was another great option to trade back then. There was also a Japan Index that people were trading puts on.
These were great early trading days. Strangely ..I was buying Dell, Intel, Microsoft, Cisco, Novell. Things have come full circle. I should dig up some of my paper trade confirmations from Quick and Riley and scan them into Flickr and post the pics here.
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