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“Progress does not follow a straight line; the future is not a mere projection of trends in the present. Rather, it is revolutionary. It overturns the conventional wisdom of the present, which often conceals or ignores the clues to the future.”
— Dr. An Wang, founder of Wang Laboratories, Inc.
Books (at Amazon.com)
- Dr. an Wang: Computer Pioneer (People of Distinction)
- Carol Greene, Published 1993
- Dr. An Wang: Computer Pioneer (People of Distinction Biographies)
- Jim Hargrove, Published 1993
- Riding the Runaway Horse: The Rise and Decline of Wang Laboratories
- Charles Kenney, Published 1992 (hardcover)
- Lessons
- Dr. An Wang, Published 1988
- Lessons
- Dr. An Wang, Published 1986
Historical References:
- Small Wang Museum
- Pictures and descriptions of older Wang products in Jan van de Veen’s collection in Nijkerk, The Netherlands.
- Dr. An Wang, inventor of magnetic core memory
- Lemelson-MIT Inventor of the Week Archives: A one-page summary of Dr. Wang’s accomplishments. Includes a drawn portrait.
- The Doctor and his Calculators
- Ferrite core memory, LOCI, Wang 300, 360, 370, 380 calculators
- The Old Calculator Web Museum
- Displays and descriptions, with historical background, including many of the calculators created by Wang
- History of Calculators – Timeline
- 18 items of Wang chronology ranging much wider than calculators
- Dr. Dobbs – 1994 – Winners and Losers [in the patent game]
- “Dr. An Wang, an immigrant from Shanghai who held a key patent on computer memory, chose an unfavorable buyout deal from IBM rather than single-handedly face an army of lawyers.”
- FROM THE ABACUS TO THE APPLE: A Timeline of Significant Events in Information and Communication Technology
- 57 chronological milestones in the lives of An Wang and Wang Laboratories, Inc. This gives the best perspective I’ve seen of Wang’s role in the development of the computer industry, though a timeline is dry reading for some. Two high points:
March 6, 1956: Dr. A. Wang assigns Patent Number 2,708,722 to IBM in exchange for a payment of $500,000 which included eight conditions under which the final $100,000 would be withheld. IBM is 10,000 times larger than Wang.
1986: The one hundred shares of Wang (Class B) stock of ten years ago, becomes 2,000 shares worth $40,000 this year. Wang employs 30,000 people. IBM is reduced from 10,000 to 20 times the size of Wang
- Chronology of Events in Computer History
- There is a rich load of historical computer information here at Virginia Tech’s Virtual Computer History Museum. Part of VT’s larger Web site, The History of Computing. (The Chronology link here is actually a mirror in Spain. Virginia Tech overhauled its site, breaking numerous links. I’ll dig out the old and the new and add links here when I get the change)
- A Brief History of the Rice Computer, 1959-1971
- Adam Thornton’s fascinating account of a 56-bit, 32Kword university-designed and built computer that spanned technology from vacuum tubes to ECL, from CRT memory to core memory, that was used for mathematical research and even ventured into speech recognition. This has nothing directly to do with Wang, but it’s an excellent presentation of early work on computers.
- Studyweb’s Computer Science – History of Computers links
- Links to general and Internet histories and chronologies. A valuable resource. (NO LONGER ACCESSIBLE)
Official Wang Websites:
- VS WebCenter
The official VS site, run by GetronicsWang Co. on a an honest to goodness VS running VS Web Server! News, product information and data sheets and other very good stuff.(gone)
- Wang Global, Inc.
(now redirects to Getronics, where no VS information can be found)(gone)
- The official Wang Global, Inc. (formerly Wang Laboratories, Inc.) Website, inaugurated in late December,1995. It contains a good range of information about Wang, its various businesses, all Wang locations worldwide, and some information on VS products. Visit it. You’ll like it.
NOTE: Since the Getronics takover of Wang Global, the Wang Website at www.wang.com now redirects the visitor to corp.getronics.com. Only by reading the fine print in that page can the confused visitor determine that the “old” www.wang.com pages are still accessible. NOTE: Now the “old” pages are no longer accessible, either.
- Wang Global VS/GCOS page
(now redirects to Getronics, where no VS information can be found)(gone) - This is where you will find Wang’s online VS information.
- VS 18000 Model 1950 Data Sheet (PDF)
(now redirects to Getronics, where no VS information can be found)(gone) - This is the newest addition to the VS line, released worldwide for immediate shipment on March 22, 1999. It is 1.7 times faster than the VS16850, 4.0 times faster than the VS8480 and 8.4 times faster than the VS300.
- Wang Disaster Services
(may have been sold to Rentsys)(gone) - On-site, multi-vendor, disaster recovery
- Wang Federal, Inc.
(now redirects to Getronics, where it retrieves a page that says, “The document you requested does not exist on this server…”)(gone) - Wang Australia (gone)
- Wang New Zealand Ltd.
(now Gen-i, with no VS information)(gone) - Wang France (gone)
- Wang PC Protect International Home Page (gone)