My first job as a broker we actually had to hand write out the order and bring it to the trading desk where the traders executed it (this was 1996 in a small firm). We quickly moved to desk top execution at the wirehouse firms. I don't think firms do this anymore, but we would get daily sheets of stocks in inventory that brokers would get extra commish for selling. At the boiler room I was at we would have $8 stocks where we could get a dollar or more per share. Yes, you read that correctly. The SEC put a stop to that. The average retail broker is not doing 200,000 share orders on a regular basis.
I wanted to say, if anyone is looking for the movie "Wall street" you can get it on DVD by buying the "michael douglas collection" at wal mart. Its a hard movie to find, so I thought I'd throw that out there.