Small WANG museum

	Small					Museum
	*Jan van de Veen, Nijkerk, The Netherlands*


	The PC world, boards, manuals and other artifacts
	WANG felt that they could make a better PC than IBM and so they did. The WANG PC had its own operating system, not compatible with IBM or any other make using MsDOS. I believe that we bought our first WANG PC in 1984 to do word-processing. WANG was the leader in word- processing at that time. A daisy-wheel printer was connected for output and this all went very well. Not being compatible was a big disadvantage and after a couple of years WordPerfect was the thing to have, but not on this PC ! These PC's are now called the WANG Classic's

	This is a PC 240 made by WANG, probably in their factory at Ireland. It still works well. If I am correct, this PC is equipped with an Intel 286 processor. We had several of these PC that worked very well. For some odd reason WANG had the 5.25 floppy of 1.2Mb as the standard while the 3.5 floppy was the thing to have. If you look insight, you see that it is designed very well with a very pleasant keyboard and fully IBM compatible. WANG never used that word, but said that it did comply with the industry standard. It came with a lot of manuals that contained useful information

	This is also a WANG PC, with the new WANG logo attached. But, this PC was manufactured in the Netherlands by the company called Tulip as a private label PC. It is a 386 machine, still working well, as it was used at the Institute up to November 2000 ! Note that it has a 3.5 floppy drive

	The WANG laptop, the WLTC ! This laptop was designed by Jonathan Huntington in 1985 and introduced that same year. It came with everything and even more that a modern laptop has. A display, keyboard, hard disk, battery and even a printer. But all made with the technology from the 80's. It means a small screen, and a lot of weight. An extra a floppy drive could be attached for backup etc. Quite cleverly, it could all be stored into bags, with the bag for the floppy hinged to the bottom of the laptop bag. The total weight on your shoulder is than just over 13 Kg ! (29 Pound) There is an interview with Mr. Huntington that is very nice to read. (Courtesy Frans van de Ven, Belgium and Alex Burgers)

	This picture shows some of the manuals that are in the museum, all in all some 50, mostly technical reference manuals dealing with the 2200 models and their peripherals. I have made up a list of all the manuals. In case that you would be interested in a copy I could make one, provided that you will pay for the cost of copying and shipping

	This is a micro-film viewer that was used by WANG field engineers. It is contained in a simple suit-case. The micro-fiches replaced probably hundreds of manuals. I now have almost all the micro-fiches that where used in the field. (Courtesy Rob Hulleman, Mr Stenvers)

	All in all I have some 250 spare-boards in the museum, mainly for the series 500, 600, 700 and 2200. Most of the boards are in good condition, but there is no guarantee. We never used a 600 system on the Institute, so I would not mind to help anyone out there with a spare-board if needed. For 700 and 2200 boards it would depend on the number of boards present. I try to keep all my systems going and I will not ship boards that I might need for my own machines

	Dr. An Wang published a book called "Lessons" in 1986. It was translated into Dutch and given as a present to all people employed with WANG in the Netherlands. The title refers to Dr. WANG as the godfather of word-processing ! Probably it was also distributed in Belgium as well as they use almost the same language (Courtesy Rob Hulleman)

	No doubt WANG had a lot of gadgets made over the years. I have quite a collection that are in a display cabinet in the museum. (Courtesy John Martens, Belgium)

	These nice pieces of crockery with the WANG logo were recently donated from Sweden. (Courtesy Mr. Håkan Argéus)

	The museum is now completed with a genuine WANG neon sign which will illuminate as soon as the lights are turned on. (Courtesy Mr Stenvers)

Return to the main menu or goto WANG 2200 or WANG desktopcalculators or Mechanical calculators		All rights by : Jan van de Veen @2019 Nijkerk, The Netherlands