DR-one | BS Microcomp, BIS, ACT, MKI

DR-one (Dealing Room Online Networking Environment) was an integrated real-time FX/MM (foreign exchange/money market) dealing room solution from BS Microcomp (through BIS Trading Systems, BIS Banking Systems, ACT, MKI, Midas-Kapiti International and Misys).

It linked applications from diverse technical platforms and market information services, both digital and video, such as Bloomberg, Reuters and Telerate, in a single, menu-driven, windowed, multi-screen workstation.

Offices included 490 Bourke St, 576 Lonsdale St, 116 Hardware St Melbourne and 5 rue du Curé Luxembourg.

DR-one, written primarily in C and some assembly, operated under MS/PC-DOS, OS/2 and Windows and ran on the IBM PC and the IBM PS/2 over token ring NetBEUI and ethernet TCP/IP, using multiple windowed display screens to provide easy, real-time access to a variety of service and applications.

Working on a multi-window, multi-screen, windowed-video application in 1988 was amazing. We got some attention.

Favourite sayings from those days include "look at that!" and "it's just like a bought one", the latter being a high form of praise.

The double-byte Japanese, Kanji, version of DR-one, DR-one/J, was completed in November 1989, final work being performed at the IBM offices in Tsukiji, Tokyo. Final work and first installation of the OS/2 version was completed at Westpac Sydney, November 1990.

Luxembourg

In February 1992 the DR-one development, sales and support teams were downsized and the five remaining development members transferred from Melbourne to Luxembourg with the plan to train local employees in the product and depart after one year. We had a big sale or two, a number of long lunches and stayed there longer than anticipated.

During the first weeks in Luxembourg Ian and I set up the office. Everyone else was dressed in suits and ties, we got by with jeans and t-shirts as we were carrying all the delivered tech around. The everything guy that was taking out the rubbish bins was in suit and tie.

We got to the point we were out of things to carry and suit and tied up. Everything worked but it was worth giving the racks a tidy before John and others shutdown the Melbourne office and transferred to Luxembourg.

As Melbourne developers departed I moved into the development manager position in 1996. Monthly meetings saw me in England from time-to-time, usually Birmingham, other times the London or Wimbledon offices.

With various company takeovers we integrated DR‑one with Citydesk and later Market Watch. The Citydesk development manager, after they were forced to merge with Market Watch, told me he now understood what the DR-one guys suffered on the Citydesk merger.

Customers started complaining that the EMS (Environment Management Service that was a god view of the entire system) no longer reported on all modules; it couldn't as 'new' modules weren't DR-one modules.

During 1997/1998 DR-one work came to a halt and as the last member of the development team I transferred to other projects.

Legacy

A Sky News article on 01 January 2016 about the release of the 1990-1991 cabinet papers used footage from the Westpac Sydney dealing room with DR-one on view. Only visible for a few seconds the moment I saw the clip I recognised the dealing room and DR-one. Sky News WBC DR-one (40s-45s).

It wasn't until 2018 I met Bill Saunders (the BS in BS Microcomp) and thanked him for the opportunity to join the DR-one team in 1988 and explained it took me to Luxembourg for 10 years and that I was the last one standing.

The DR-one Trader Pad pictured below is the one in which I updated the 8085 assembly that on power-up doesn't 'beep' but plays the opening bars from 'Star Wars'.

27 years after working on DR-one I still often say or think "DR-one" instead of the name of project on which I now work, that's the impact DR-one had on me.

I spent 10 years on this project before it was retired, it led me to Luxembourg where I lived 10 years - this page and some fond memories are about all that is left.

If you were involved, have something to add, correct or just want to say hi please feel free to contact me.

Images

Modules

DR-one was comprised of multiple modules, it's been a while, I may be missing some or applying incorrect names:

• AIL - Application Interface Library - APIs
• AIU - (forget the app, AIU taken from archive.org of dr-one.com I did in 2000, perhaps Application Interface Utility)
• BBS - BlackBoard Server - free-form text and combined feeds from other servers
• CWS - Communications WorkStation - DOS workstation, multi-screen, multi-windowed, multi-protocol emulation
• DCMS - Dual Console Management System - multi-screen, text-based windowing library
• Director - Essentially remote desktop to a DOS machine
• EMS - Environment Management Service - DOS & OS/2 system management station
• FTS - Fault Tolerant Server - detects dead server and restarts as that server
• PCS - Protocol Conversion Server - convert feeds into a common format
• RDE - Reuters Distribution Engine - OS/2 server, in conjunction with RQS serves Reuters quote info
• RPR - Reuters Page Router - routing RPS requests through multiple instances of RPS
• RPS - Reuters Page Server - DOS & OS/2 Reuters page server
• RQS - Reuters Quote Server - OS/2 server, in conjunction with RDE serves Reuters quote info
• SFP - Reuters Selectfeed Plus server
• STS - Stress Test Station - Emulates tens of CWS/TWS instances to place servers under test load
• TPS - Telerate Page Server - DOS & OS/2 Telerate page server
• TWS - Trading WorkStation - OS/2 PM workstation, multi-screen, multi-windowed, multi-protocol emulation, a lot of DDE support
• VIS - Video Interface Server - DOS & OS/2 keyboard, video & mouse switching video-only feed to workstations

PDRs - Product Defect Reports

Favourite PDR resolution

Not mine but a favorite I saw in the commit history.

"For [Redacted] drop pages add 1 to the width as THAT STUPID [REDACTED] MOB deliver a headliner of 81 charcters [sic] long. I'm too fucking lazy and pissed off to make major changes to the driver to fix this problem this is nice and easy.".