SONY Tradecomm interface

In 1994, SONY hired vivid to design the interface for a stock trading system within General Magic’s MagicCap OS for the SONY-branded device to use this system. It was a very limited interface (a small screen with only 4 levels of gray) but a fascinating device.

The interface had a place-based metaphor, specifically, rooms, buildings, and a street that users moved between. That’s the reason for the colonnade image (it was what you saw as you first entered the “trading building.”