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This Wang PC-002 was actually operating when this photograph was taken, but I have no way of knowing how well. The monitor seen here is for illustration only, as I don't have a monitor that will connect to the Wang. The Wang PC-002 is a very large PC that seems to be as comfortable on its side as lying flat, and I've so far always left it on its side so that it takes less floor space. |
I suspect that the machine is in perfect working order because of all the activity it displays when it's powered up. There are actually six lights on the keyboard: one on the CAPS LOCK key, and five along the width of the keyboard, between the function and number keys. These lights all come on when the PC-002 is powered up. Then the CAPS LOCK light goes out, and then the red lights along the top of the keyboard go out, one at a time, with the longest pause occurring between the third and fourth light of the top row. This is followed by a beep, then the disk drive turns on for a couple of seconds, and the machine beeps again, after which it responds in various ways to keypresses.
The keyboard itself is rather interesting, as it connects to the main unit with a 4-pin DIN plug, and contains all the aformentioned lights and the system speaker. It also has a lot of keys with specialized functions, such as INDENT, PAGE, CENTER, MERGE, NOTE, SRCH, REPLC, EXEC, GO TO and others, revealing Wang's history as a maker of word processors.
The back of the Wang PC-002 means business. From here we can see the backs of the cards, the fan, and the various ports that this particular machine is blessed with. |
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I suspect that these DIN plugs are intended to connect to a monitor. They come out the back of the expansion board labeled "IBM Mono Emulator". |
The one with the "pie-slice" symbol looks like it might represent a cathode ray tube, so I guess the video signals come from there. And I have been told by a former Wang owner (Hi, Pete!) that the monitor uses two plugs, one for video and one for power, so I guess the other one is the power connector.
This begs the question: What did the Wang use for video when it didn't have an IBM Mono Emulator board installed? That might be answered by the following photo:
My first guess for these connectors was that they would be used for some kind of network. However, it has been reported by Tony Duell on the Classic Computer mailing list that he has seen a Wang terminal with these connectors, and he proposed that maybe the machine used one of these terminals as the console.
This is what you see when the cover is taken off the PC-002. All boards, including the large L-shaped motherboard, plug into an 86-pin bus. In the picture to the left, the installed boards are (from top to bottom) the PM101 IBM Mono Emulator; some mysterious card that is connected to the potential networking card by a short ribbon cable; the potential networking card; (empty slot); the PM032-B 512K Memory Expansion; the motherboard. |
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This is what the expansion boards look like. This one is the IBM Mono Emulator board. I don't know what the edge connector at the top is for, but another owner of an incomplete Wang PC (Lawrence Walker) reports that his emulator card is connected to another card via a ribbon cable. |
Date codes on parts suggest different years of manufacture for each of these boards, ranging from 1983 for the motherboard, right up to 1986 for the 512K Memory Expansion. The keyboard actually has a Quality Control stamp from October 1987, so it probably wasn't originally matched with this machine.
For a size comparison, I sat an IBM-PC (5150) on top of the Wang PC-002. The Wang is considerably larger. It measures approximately 6.5-inches high, by 14.75-inches wide, by 23-inches deep, and it weighs a hefty 38 pounds. |
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