Wagner Matching Engine
An automated futures-matching exchange, filed in November 1983 — one of the earliest attempts to put a human trading pit inside a computer.
Automated futures trading exchange · World Energy Exchange Corporation · filed 1983-11-03 · granted 1990-02-20 · expired 2007-02-20
Playable, self-contained demo. Nothing is sent anywhere; it runs entirely in your browser.
The story
Two origin stories share this neighborhood. US4903201 was filed November 3, 1983 by World Energy Exchange Corporation, describing an automated futures exchange — a matching engine standing in for the pit. It's remembered, when it's remembered at all, by the name attached to the litigation that followed: Wagner. History kept the lawsuit and mostly forgot the inventor.
Six weeks earlier, on September 15, 1982, an unassigned application was filed for US4412287, 'Automated stock exchange,' granted October 25, 1983 — before Wagner's filing even went in. Two independent attempts, within about a year of each other, to do the same essential thing: take the trading floor and put it in a machine. Both are free now. US4412287 lapsed on a missed maintenance fee in 1987; Wagner's ran its full term and expired in 2007.
The demo below rebuilds the matching-engine core the 1983 filing describes: orders in, priority and time rules applied, a match out. Play with the order book. Nothing here needs a license anymore.