42 Facts About Wang Laboratories

Wang Laboratories was successively headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Tewksbury, Massachusetts, and finally in Lowell, Massachusetts .

Company was directed by An Wang Laboratories, who was described as an "indispensable leader" and played a personal role in setting business and product strategy until his death in 1990.

Wang Laboratories 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.

An Wang Laboratories took steps to ensure that the Wang Laboratories family would retain control of the company even after going public.

Wang Laboratories 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.

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Wang Laboratories stock had been listed on the New York Stock Exchange, but this maneuver was not quite acceptable under NYSE's rules, and Wang Laboratories was forced to delist with NYSE and relist on the more liberal American Stock Exchange.

From 1965 to about 1971, Wang Laboratories was a well-regarded calculator company.

Wang Laboratories 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.

Harold Koplow, who had written the microcode for the Wang Laboratories 700 rewrote the microcode to perform word processing functions instead of number crunching.

Operator of a Wang Laboratories 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.

Ahead of IBM and Xerox, Wang Laboratories captured the lead for "the 'intelligent' printer: a reasonably priced, high-speed office copier that can be linked electronically" to PCs "and other automated equipment".

Wang Laboratories's first computer, the Wang Laboratories 3300, was an 8-bit integrated circuit general purpose minicomputer specifically designed to be the central processor for a multi-terminal time-sharing system.

Wang Laboratories developed and marketed several lines of small computer systems for both word processing and data processing.

Unlike the other product lines, such as the VS and OIS, Wang Laboratories aggressively used value-added resellers to customize and market 2200 systems.

In 1997, Wang Laboratories reported having about two hundred 2200 systems still under maintenance around the world.

Wang Laboratories had a line called Alliance, which was based on the high-end OIS hardware architecture.

Press and the industry referred to the class of machines made by Wang Laboratories, including the VS, as "minicomputers, "and Kenney's 1992 book refers to the VS line as "minicomputers" throughout.

Wang Laboratories was one of the first computer companies to advertise on television and the first to run an ad during the Super Bowl in 1978.

Wang Laboratories wanted to compete against IBM as a computer company, selling directly to management information system departments.

Wang Laboratories 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.

Wang Laboratories's approach was internally called "The Gas Cooker Program, " named after similar programs to give discounts on new gas stoves by trading in an old one.

Wang Laboratories was accused of targeting Wordplex by offering a large discount on Wang Laboratories OIS systems with a trade-in of Wordplex machines, regardless of the age or condition of the trade-in machine.

Wang Laboratories did make one last play in this arena, producing a dedicated Intel-based word processor called the Wang Laboratories Office Assistant in 1984.

Wang Laboratories DVX was one of the first integrated switchboard and voicemail systems.

Wang Laboratories, which had added DVX Message Waiting in 1984, named their 1989 announcement DVX II.

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An Wang Laboratories initially refused to develop an IBM-compatible PC due to his personal dislike of IBM, even though his son Fred pitched the idea.

Original Wang Laboratories PC was released in April 1982 to counter the IBM PC, which had been released the previous August and which had gained wide acceptance in the market for which Wang Laboratories traditionally positioned the OIS system.

An ergonomic feature of the Wang Laboratories PC was the monitor arm that clamped to the desk and held the monitor above and a system clamp that attached to the side of the desk and held the rather large computer box.

Example, the floppy controller circuitry on the Wang Laboratories PC was similar to that of the IBM PC but involved enough design differences that PC-compatible software attempting to manipulate it directly would fail.

IBM-PC Emulation on the 8086-based Wang Laboratories PC was working fairly reliably when IBM released their 80286-based PC-AT.

Wang Laboratories's engineers came up with a rather devious instruction-prefetch monitor that managed to cope with that challenge at the expense of a modest performance penalty.

In 1992, Wang Laboratories marketed a PC-compatible based on the Intel 80386SX processor, which they called the Alliance 750CD.

In 1994, Wang Laboratories released the slimline Alliance 750CD 80486 based PC in the United Kingdom.

The system was so costly, even in the context of a Wang Laboratories Integrated Imaging System, that Freestyle was only affordable for highly specialized or very senior staff.

Common view within the PC community is that Wang Laboratories Labs failed because it specialized in computers designed specifically for word processing and did not foresee general-purpose personal computers with word processing software in the 1980s.

Unlike most computer companies that funded their growth by issuing stock, An Wang Laboratories had used debt to avoid further dilution of family control of the company.

An Wang Laboratories died in March 1990, and Miller took on the additional posts of chairman and CEO.

Wang Laboratories underwent massive restructuring and eliminated its bank debt in August 1990, but it still ended the year with a record net loss.

In November 1990, Wang Laboratories announced their first personal computers running Unix.

In 1987, Wang Laboratories developed a new typesetting system in conjunction with Arlington, MA-based Texet Corp.

In June 1991, Wang Laboratories started reselling IBM computers, in exchange for IBM investing in Wang Laboratories stock.

Wang Laboratories still recorded a net loss for the 1991 fiscal year.