Small     

Museum

Jan van de Veen, Nijkerk, The Netherlands

The WANG 2200 appeared in May 1973 and was the first WANG minicomputer that could perform data processing in a common computer language. The models came as 2200-A,-B and -C. The A model being the simple machine, while model's  B and C had more capabilities in arithmetic. The next model was introduced as the 2200-T with even more power. But, these where slow machines, working with cassette's for storage of programs and data.

As an option you could buy a desk to hold the CRT, a printer and the CPU with separate power supply.
CPU and power supply where hidden in a drawer, but still rather well accessible.

This is the keyboard from the 2200-C model in the museum. (courtesy Hannover Architectural High School)
The program language used was BASIC and in order to speed up programming, many statements where on the keys.
With the key in the left corner you could switch between the normal characters and the statement function.
In the statement mode, the full text of the statement like RESTORE, READ, PRINT, SIN(  etc. would appear on the screen with a single keystroke. Only with the introduction of new terminals at around 1980, using serial communication instead of coax, this function was abandoned.

This is also one of the very first models form the 2200 line of products
It is a model 2200 E2
Built around 1976. It may look like a terminal, but it is a full scale computer. All the logic boards are inside. Just plug it into the mains and it will show READY BASIC:
The CRT is 16 x 64. The cassette drive on the right could store programs and data.
As the cassette drive was operating, the screen would immediately loose its stability and start to shake each time a block of 256 bytes was read from the tape.
It even holds a D25 socket so you could attach a modem or perform serial communications. There is a Centronics parallel interface as well for connecting a printer. Many thanks go to Georg Schaefer from Germany who did an excellent job in repairing the CPU board, so the 2200 is in working order again. (April 2005)

Courtesy Mr Ed Schijf (2005)
 

This is an 2200 PCS II built and approved in May 1978.

Much like the 2200 E2 model showed above, but with a wonderful extension of two 5.25 floppy drives mounted on top of the case.
Again, all the logic is inside, making it quite heavy indeed. 
PCS stood for Personal Computer System, and indeed, with this machine on your desk you could perform almost any task, not being dependent of anyone else 
To see more about the PCS II click here

Courtesy Mr Ed Schijf (2005)
 

The disk drives from Diablo and Phoenix where in size like washing machines and very expensive.
WANG had to find a way to make the 2200 more accessible for the small enterprises.
By 1980 the first completely concealed hard disks entered the market. They where often referred to as Winchester drives.
The storage capacity would be in the range of 8 Mb.

In May 1980 the SVP was introduced, with a Winschester drive, an 8 inch floppy and a maximum of 2 terminals.
Still not very cheap, but the PC had not entered the market so WANG mainly had to compete with HP machines in about the same price setting.

Besides the SVP the LVP was introduced in 1980.
Mainly for the same market of small enterprises.
The LVP could have a maximum of 4 users, that is 4 terminals could be connected using serial communication.
The cabinet is larger and can be moved around easy. Because of the larger cabinet, it could hold 2 Winchester drives giving the user more storage capacity.
 

WANG had entered the world of finance and banking in 1978 by introducing the VS computer. From 1982 to 1987, not much attention was given to the 2200 line. Their installed base must have been several 10,000th, all over the world. As no new products for the 2200 came on the market, people where looking for alternatives. Some former WANG employees had made a product called NIAKWA, that would emulate a 2200 on a PC. Much cheaper and faster, but for single user only.  In 1988 WANG must have realized that they where loosing customers and new products where introduced. The 2200 was now called the CS. Soon there came Disk Storage cabinets with large Winchester drives, cheap terminals and printers. We soon had the Phoenix drive replaced by two DS cabinets with tapes as backup medium.
The CS on the image was made in Ecuador. The main advantage was the much lower cost for maintenance. All the older 2200 machines where very expensive in maintenance and the replacement of an older system with a CS could be paid in a few years from the reduction in maintenance costs !
 

What you see here is a very special machine. In 1990 WANG decided to have the 2200CS running on an Intel 386 chip and named is the CS-Turbo ! The code was developed in India as I believe.  The CPU , not visible on the image, is still a gray, not very good looking box. You see two different terminals, an old and expensive one on the left and a cheap one on the right. The two Disk Storage cabinets are under the table.
This machine still works perfectly, although it has not done any real work since July 1995. We used this CS-Turbo from 1992 to 1995 very successfully

This machine could have partitions much larger than the 56K that was the limit on a MVP. On the screen  you can see that partition 2 has been assigned 400K ! For old 2200 users this must be a miracle.
The so called Global Partition, holding programs that could be accessed by all users could be as large as memory allowed !
It was even possible to create a virtual disk and all data that needed to be accessed fast and often, was loaded into the allocated memory partition during the boot process.
 

Most left is an expensive 2336 DW (1983), in the middle an 2436 DE (1988), much cheaper but still with the same keyboard and in the right an 2536 DW that was made in Taiwan and was the less expansive one. These terminals could work with a MVP, LVP, SVP, CS and CS-Turbo.
If the extension of the model is DE, then the terminal was for data entry mainly, but a DW extension mend that the layout of the keyboard was for Word-processing also. 

Baudrate was set to 19.200, 8 Bits, no parity. The 2536 was capable to a much higher transmission rate, I believe up to 57.600, provided you had the more advanced MX controller in your CPU.

Courtesy Mr. Winterer from Stuttgart for donating the 2336 DW (2018)  

We must keep in mind that WANG invented Word Processing. Almost all of the machines showed above where also on the market with the W extension. Same machines, but specially adapted for word processing.

By 1995 WANG was in great troubles and had even entered a Chapter 11 status. This gave them time to restructure the company while keeping creditors at bay. Dr Wang had died some years before and I believe that his vision was badly missed. Eventually   WANG became part of the Dutch company Getronics and later on KPN. If you would like to know more about  the story of  WANG, you should see to get a copy of "Riding the runaway horse". I was told that it is out of print, but perhaps some bookstores might still have it. This excellent book is written by Charles C. Kenny and covers the whole story of Wang Laboratories 
Publ. Little and Brown, ISBN 0-316-48919-0

All rights by : Jan van de Veen 
@2019   Nijkerk,  The Netherlands