System and method for fully configurable real time processing

Described are various embodiments of a neutral input/output (NIO) platform that includes a core that supports one or more services. While the platform itself may technically be viewed as an executable application in some embodiments, the core may be thought of as an application engine that runs task specific applications called services. The services are constructed using defined templates that are recognized by the core, although the templates can be customized to a certain extent. The core is designed to run the services, and the services in turn run blocks that provide processing functionality to their respective service. Due to the structure and flexibility provided by the platform's core, services, and blocks, the platform is configurable to asynchronously process any input signals from one or more sources in real time.