1 Oct
2006
1 Oct
'06
6:57 a.m.
Why is it that Wang equipment is not seen available very often? I
just find it interesting that you rarely see many people on the list
discussing Wang mini's or Wang workstations. I had the opportunity
back in 1991 to install a Novell NACS (Async Comm Server) to a Wang mini
so that the company that had it could replace the Wang terminals with
PC's running the remote connectivity client and still continue
connecting to the Wang mini.
Curt
Dave McGuire wrote:
On Sep 30, 2006, at 2:30 PM, Jay West wrote:
Ok, I went there and took a picture, you can see
it at
http://www.ezwind.net/jwest/whatsit/09300001.JPG
The "aspect ratio" in the picture is misleading. While the front of
the cpu isn't perfectly square, it is more square than the picture
would lead you to believe. In the 3rd party floppy boxes are loads of
WANG label software, as well as customer disks. In the brown box is
about a 1.5 foot long stretch of silver padded WANG binders/manuals,
many with original software disks. I noticed some stuff mentioning
2780/3780 communications software which grabbed my attention. The
monitor hooks up to the cpu with an odd "dual din cable". Two din
connectors on each end, one has about 9 pins the other has about 5
pins. The monitor obviously gets both power and data on this dual cable.
The CPU appears to be something called a "Wang Professional Computer"
from what I can glean from the docs. The model tag on the back is
extremely faded black print on silver so it's just a shadow. It seems
to say the model is something vaguely like PM-XC1. There is an IBM
mono "module" which has a part number something like PM101 and a
"winchester controller module" which has a part number like PM029.
Ahh yes, I used to service those. They run DOS but they're not
*quite* PC compatible. I LOVE the video on those machines...those
little monitors are so wonderfully sharp!
They use a proprietary bus, and Wang had quite a few options
available for them. They even had the BNC/TNC cable-based interface
to connect to the larger Wang OIS and VS systems.
Fun machines. Built like tanks.
-Dave
--Dave McGuire
Cape Coral, FL
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From just a 30 second skim of some of the manuals
it appears to be
running a
very customized version of DOS. The proprietary changes to the OS
appear to be more than just cosmetic.