Wang Laboratories was a computer company founded in 1951 by Dr. An Wang and Dr. G. Y.

Chu. The company was successively headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts (1954

1963), Tewksbury, Massachusetts (19631976), and finally in Lowell, Massachusetts (1976
1997). At its peak in the 1980s, Wang Laboratories had annual revenues of $3 billion and
employed over 33,000 people. It was one of the leading companies during the time of
the Massachusetts Miracle.[1]
The company was directed by Dr. Wang, who was described as an "indispensable leader" and
played a personal role in setting business and product strategy until his death in 1990. Under
his direction, the company went through several distinct transitions between different product
lines.[2]
Wang Laboratories filed for bankruptcy protection in August 1992.[3] After emerging from
bankruptcy, the company eventually changed its name to Wang Global. Wang Global was
acquired by Getronics of The Netherlands in 1999, becoming Getronics North America, then
was sold to KPN in 2007 and CompuCom in 2008, after which it no longer existed as a distinct
brand or division.
Contents
[hide]

1 Public stock listing

2 Products
o

2.1 Typesetters

2.2 Calculators

2.3 Word processors

2.3.1 The Wang 1200

2.3.2 Wang OIS

2.4 Early computer models

2.4.1 Wang 2200

2.4.2 Wang OIS

2.4.3 The Wang VS computer line

3 Going after IBM

3.1 Aggressive marketing

3.2 Word processing market collapse

4 The Digital Voice Exchange

5 PCs and PC based products

o

5.1 The original Wang PC

5.2 IBM compatible Wang PCs

5.3 Wang Freestyle

6 Decline and fall

7 Final years

8 See also

9 Notes and references

10 External links

Public stock listing[edit]

Dr. An Wang took steps to ensure that the Wang family would retain control of the company
even after going public. He created a second class of stock, class B, with higher dividends, but
only one-tenth the voting power of class C. The public mostly bought class B shares; the Wang
family retained most of the class C shares. (The letters B and C were used to ensure that
brokerages would fill any Wang stock orders with class B shares unless class C was
specifically requested). Wang stock had been listed in the New York Stock Exchange, but this
maneuver was not quite acceptable under NYSE's rules, and Wang was forced to delist with
NYSE and relist on the more liberal American Stock Exchange.

Products[edit]
Typesetters[edit]
The company's first major project was the Linasec in 1964. It was an electronic special
purpose computer, designed to justify papertape for use on automated Linotype machines. It
was developed under contract to Compugraphic, who manufactured phototypesetters.
Compugraphic retained the rights to manufacture the Linasec without royalty. They exercised
these rights, effectively forcing Wang out of the market.

Calculators[edit]

The Wang LOCI-2[4] (an earlier LOCI-1 was not a real product) was introduced in 1965 and was
probably the first desktop calculator capable of computing logarithms, quite an achievement for
a machine without any integrated circuits.[5] The electronics included 1,275 discrete transistors.
It actually performed multiplication by adding logarithms, and roundoff in the display conversion
was noticeable: 2 times 2 yielded 3.999999999.
From 1965 to about 1971, Wang was a well-regarded calculator company. Wang calculators
cost in the mid-four-figures,[6] used Nixie tube readouts, performed transcendental functions,
had varying degrees of programmability, and exploited magnetic core memory. One
model[7] had a central processing unit (the size of a small suitcase) connected by cables
leading to four individual desktop display/keyboard units. Competition included HP, which
introduced the HP 9100A in 1968, and old-line calculator companies such
asMonroe and Marchant. One little documented "feature" of these calculators was that you
could predictably lock-up the calculator display heads, getting the Nixie tube display to
endlessly "roll" numbers, by entering the sequence 30311142.59 [Enter] 99 [Enter] 9 [Enter].
[citation needed]

Wang calculators were at first sold to scientists and engineers, but the company later won a
solid niche in financial-services industries, which had previously relied on complicated printed
tables for mortgages and annuities.
One perhaps apocryphal story tells of a banker who spot-checked a Wang calculator against a
mortgage table and found a discrepancy. The calculator was right, the printed tables were
wrong, and the company's reputation was made.
In the early seventies, Dr. Wang believed that calculators would become unprofitable lowmargin commodities, and decided to exit the calculator business.

Word processors[edit]
The Wang 1200[edit]
Wang's first attempt at a word processor was the Wang 1200, announced in late 1971, but not
available until 1972. The design consisted of the logic of a Wang 500 calculator hooked up to
an OEM-manufactured IBM Selectric typewriter for keying and printing, and dual cassette
decks for storage. Harold Koplow, who had written the microcode for the Wang 700 (and its
derivative, the Wang 500) rewrote the microcode to perform word processing functions instead
of number crunching.
The operator of a Wang 1200 typed text on a conventional IBM Selectric keyboard; when the
Return key was pressed, the line of text was stored on a cassette tape. One cassette held
roughly 20 pages of text, and could be "played back" (e.g., the text retrieved) by printing the
contents on continuous-form paper in the 1200 typewriter's "print" mode. The stored text could

also be edited, using keys on a simple, six-key array. Basic editing functions included Insert,
Delete, Skip (character, line), and so on.
The labor and cost savings of this device were immediate, and remarkable: pages of text no
longer had to be retyped to correct simple errors, and projects could be worked on, stored, and
then retrieved for use later on. The rudimentary Wang 1200 machine was the precursor of the
Wang Office Information System (OIS), which revolutionized the way typing projects were
performed in the American workplace.
Wang OIS[edit]
Following the Wang 1200, Harold Koplow and David Moros made another attempt at designing
a word processor. They started by first writing the user's manual for the product. A 2002 Boston
Globe article refers to Koplow as a "wisecracking rebel" who "was waiting for dismissal when,
in 1975, he developed the product that made computers popularly accessible."
In Koplow's words, "Dr. Wang kicked me out of marketing. I, along with Dave Moros was
relegated to Long Range Planning 'LRPed'. This ... was tantamount to being fired: 'here is a
temporary job until you find another one in some other company.'"
Although he and Moros were told to design a word processing machine, they were given no
resources.[citation needed] They perceived the assignment as busywork. They went ahead anyway,
wrote the manual, and convinced Dr. Wang to turn it into a real project. The word processing
machine the Wang 1200 WPS was introduced in June 1976 and was an instant success,
as was its successor, the 1977 Wang OIS[8] (Office Information System).
These products were technological breakthroughs. They were multi-user systems. Each
workstation looked like a typical terminal, but contained its own Intel 8080 microprocessor
(later versions used a Z80) and 64K of RAM (comparable, but lower, in power than the original
IBM PC which came out in 1981). Disk storage was centralized in a master unit and shared by
the workstations, and connection was via high-speed dual coaxial cable "928 Link".[9] Multiple
OIS masters could be networked to each other, allowing file sharing among hundreds of users.
The systems were user-friendly and fairly easy to administer, with the latter task often
performed by office personnel, in an era when most machines required trained administrators.
All software for the systems was developed by Wang Laboratories, and the operating system,
file formats, and electronic interface specification were closely held proprietary secrets. Wang
did not want third parties developing for or interconnecting with its systems. (This was relaxed
somewhat in the late eighties).[citation needed]

Early computer models[edit]

Wang 2200[edit]

On its journey from calculators and word processing to serious data processing Wang
developed and marketed several lines of small computer system, some of which were WPbased and some of which were DP-based.[clarification needed] Instead of a clear, linear progression, the
product lines overlapped and in some cases borrowed technology from each other.
The most identifiable Wang minicomputer performing recognizable data processing was
the Wang 2200 which appeared in May 1973. Unlike some other desktop computers such as
the HP 9830, it had a CRT in a cabinet that also included an integrated computer
controlled cassette tape storage unit and keyboard. Microcoded to run interpretiveBASIC,
about 65,000 systems were shipped in its lifetime and it found wide use in small and mediumsize businesses worldwide.
The original 2200 was a single user system. The improved VP model increased performance
more than tenfold and enhanced the language (renamed Basic-2). The 2200 VP evolved into
a desktop computer and larger MVP system to support up to 16 workstations and utilized
commercial disk technologies that appeared in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The disk
subsystems could be attached to up to 15 computers giving a theoretical upper limit of 240
workstations in a single cluster.
Unlike the other product lines such as the VS and OIS (both described below), Wang
aggressively used value added resellers (VARs) to customize and market 2200 systems. One
such creative solution deployed dozens of 2200 systems and was developed in conjunction
with Hawaii- and Hong Kong-based firm, Algorithms, Inc. It provided paging(beeper) services
for much of the Hong Kong market in the early 1980s.
Overshadowed by the Wang VS, the 2200 languished as a cost-effective, but forgotten solution
in the hands of the customers who had it. In the late 1980s Wang revisited the 2200 series one
last time, offering 2200 customers a new 2200 CS with bundled maintenance for less than
customers were then paying just for maintenance of their aging 2200s. The 2200 CS was
accompanied by an Intel 386 processor, updated disk units and other peripherals. Most 2200
customers upgraded to the 2200 CS, after which Wang never again developed or marketed
any new 2200 products. In 1997 Wang reported having about two hundred 2200 systems still
under maintenance around the world. Throughout, Wang had always offered maintenance
services for the 2200.
The 2200 Basic2 language was ported to be compiled and run on non-Wang hardware
and operating systems by at least two companies. Niakwa Inc[10] created a product named NPL
(originally named Basic-2C). Kerridge Computer [11] (now a part of ADP) created a product
named KCML. Both products support DOS, Windows and various Unix systems. The Basic2
language has been substantially enhanced and extended by both companies to meet modern
needs. Compared to the 2200 Wang hardware the compiled solutions improve all factors

(speed, disk space, memory, user limits) by tens to hundreds of times. So while Wang support
for the 2200 is gone many software applications continue to function.
During the 1970s about 2,000 Wang 2200T computers were shipped to the USSR. Due to
the Afghan war in the 1980s, US and COCOM export restrictions ended the shipment of Wang
computers. The Soviets were in great need of computers. In 1981 Russian engineers
at Minpribor's Schetmash factory in Kursk reverse engineered the Wang 2200T and created a
computer they named the Iskra 226. The "COCOM restrictions" theory, though, while popular in
the West, is challenged by some Russian computer historians on the basis of the fact that
development for the Iskra-226 started in 1978, two years before the Afghan war. One possible
reason for this might be a Soviet fear of the backdoors in the Western hardware. It is also
significantly differs from the Wang 2200 in its internals, being more inspired by it, rather than a
direct clone.
It used the same Basic language (named T-Basic) with a few enhancements. [12] Many research
papers reference calculations done on the Iskra 226. The computer won a 1985 state prize.
[13]

Later, a somewhat scaled-down Unix implementation was created for Iskra-226, which was

widely used in the Soviet Union but is virtually unknown in the West.
Wang OIS[edit]
The Wang OIS (Office Information System) was heavily WP oriented and featured Wang's
"Glossary" function. A Glossary was a word processing document that was "attached" to a
workstation, which contained shortcuts to frequently typed phrases. For example, an operator
in a law firm could insert the phrase "United States Constitution" into a Glossary document,
and then recall the phrase into a word processing document by pressing the GL key and the
letter "U", thus saving numerous repetitive keystrokes. A superset of Glossary, called Decision
Processing, was a system of programming that fitted into the WP model and was designed to
be easy to master. A simple IF/THEN program (with subroutines) could be constructed to
perform tedious editing routines, and then "run" on a word processing document while the
operator performed other tasks. The design goal of Glossary and Decision Processing was that
secretaries would be able to use them to extend the functionality of the document management
and manipulation provided by the OIS.[citation needed]
Like the Wang 2200, the OIS was characterized by evolution into a 24-user system. The OIS
and the VS overlapped. Features such as dual-coax connections to workstations and printers
were common to both system families. Buried deep in the VS microcode are entire pieces of
OIS code, probably because WP did not figure into the original design of the VS, but was
added later.[citation needed]
Wang also had a line called Alliance, which was based on the high end OIS (140/145)
hardware architecture. It had more powerful software compared to the OIS word processing

and list processing packages. The system was Tempest certified, leading to global deployment
in American embassies after the Iran hostage crisis.[14] The most significant enhancement[citation
needed]

was in the indexing capabilities of the Alliance system; documents could be indexed by

every word contained in them. The database product, Visual Memory, permitted every word in
each field to be indexed. In addition to the advanced indexing features, the Alliance word
processor was also substantially enhanced,[citation needed] even though the Z80 platform on which it
ran forced it to remain as an 8-bit application in a 64KB workstation.
The Wang VS computer line[edit]
The first Wang VS computer[15] was introduced in 1977, about the same time as Digital
Equipment Corporation's VAX, and continues to be in use 36 years later. Its instruction setwas
compatible with the IBM 360 series, but it did not run any IBM 360 system software. The VS
operating system and all system software were built from the ground up to support interactive
users as well as batch operations. The VS was aimed directly at the business data processing
market in general, and IBM in particular. While many programming languages were available,
the VS was typically programmed in COBOL. Other languages supported in the VS integrated
development environment includedAssembler, COBOL 74, COBOL 85, BASIC, Ada, RPG II,
C, PL/I, FORTRAN, Glossary, MABASIC, SPEED II and Procedure (a scripting
language). Pascal was also supported for I/O co-processor development. The Wang PACE
(Professional Application Creation Environment) 4GL and database was used from the mid1980s onward by customers and third party developers to build complex applications
sometimes involving many thousands of screens, hundreds of distinct application modules,
and serving many hundreds of users. Substantial vertical applications were developed for the
Wang VS by third party software houses throughout the 1980s in COBOL, PACE, BASIC, PL/I
and RPG II. TheWang OFFICE family of applications and Wang WP were both popular
applications on the VS. Word Processing ran on the VS through services that emulated the
OIS environment and downloaded the WP software as "microcode" (in Wang terminology) to
VS workstations.
The press and the industry referred to the class of machines made by Wang, including the VS,
as "minicomputers,"[16][17][18] and Kenney's 1992 book refers to the VS line as "minicomputers"
throughout.[19] Although some argue that the high-end VSes and their successors should qualify
as mainframes, Dr. Wang avoided this term. In his autobiography, Dr. Wang, rather than calling
the VS 300 a mainframe, said that it "verges on mainframe performance.". [20] He went on to
draw distinction between the "mainframes" at the high end of IBM's line ("just as Detroit would
rather sell large cars ... so IBM would rather sell mainframes")in which IBM had a virtual
monopolywith the "mid-sized systems" in which IBM had not achieved dominance: "The
minicomputer market is still healthy. This is good for the customer and good for minicomputer
makers."[21]Wang Laboratories positioned the VS line as minicomputers, and reflected this in its

marketing collateral and press releases.[citation needed] Later models, the small VS5000 series,
launched in approximately 1988, were user-installable, the smallest being physically similar in
size to PCs of the era. The largest supported an increasingly substantial number of users.

Going after IBM[edit]

Dr. Wang felt a personal sense of rivalry with IBM, partly as a result of heavy-handed treatment
by IBM in 1955/56 over the rights to his magnetic-core patents. (This encounter formed the
subject of a long chapter in Wang's own book, Lessons.) According to Charles C. Kenney,
"Jack Connors remembers being in Wang's office one day when the Doctor pulled out a chart
on which he had plotted Wang's growth and projected that Wang Laboratories would overtake
IBM sometime in the middle of the 1990s. 'He had kept it a long time,' says Connors. 'And
he believed it.'"
Wang was one of the first computer companies to advertise on television, and the first to run
an ad during the Super Bowl in 1978. Their first ad literally cast Wang Laboratories as David
and IBM as Goliath, several years before the famous 1984 Apple Computer ad. [22] A later ad
depicted Wang Laboratories as a helicopter gunship taking aim at IBM.[citation needed]
Wang wanted to compete against IBM as a computer company, selling directly to Management
Information System departments. Before the VS, however, Wang Laboratories was not taken
seriously as a computer company. The calculators, word processing systems and OIS were
sold into individual departments, bypassing the corporate data-processing decision-makers.
The chapter in Wang's book dealing with them shows that he saw them only as "a beachhead
in the Fortune 1000." The Wang VS was Wang's entre into IT departments. In his book, Dr.
Wang notes that, to sell the VS, "we aggressively recruited salesmen with strong backgrounds
in data processing ... who had experience dealing with MIS executives, and who knew their
way around Fortune 1000 companies." As the VS took hold, the word processor and OIS lines
were phased out. The word processing software continued, in the form of a loadablemicrocode environment that allowed VS workstations to take on the behavior of traditional
Wang WP terminals to operate with the VS and use it as a document server.
Wang made inroads into IBM and DEC markets in the 1980s, but did not have a serious impact
on IBM's mainframe market due to self-limiting factors. Even though Dr. Wang wanted to
compete with IBM, too many Wang salespeople were incompletely trained on the significant
DP capabilities of the VS. In many instances the VS ran smaller enterprises up to about $500
million/year and in larger organizations found use as a gateway to larger corporate
mainframes, handling workstation pass-through and massive print services.
At Exxon Corporation, for instance, 13 1985-top-of-the-line VS300s at the Houston
headquarters were used in the