DOS/Windows for Wang Professional Computer (not a PC clone)?

From: Dr. Ido <drido_at_optushome.com.au>
Date: Sat May 31 14:18:00 2003

>I wish I could help you with software but stupidly I
>ditched all my 5.25" media when I left the UK about 10
>years ago. At one time I had Lotus 1-2-3, and dbase,
>along with the Wang IWP package, and I had various
>games including Pacman that had been ported over. But
>you may still get lucky.

I've got a versions 2.6 and 3.0 of the IWP among the original floppies I
have, I think there's an older version on the HDD. Also got the original
floppy for MS Chart, though it won't run as I don't have the right video
card. I asks for a "medium resolution card and monitor", I've never heard
of any PC video card described like that so I'm pretty sure it's the wang
version.

It also has Lotus 123 1.x, BASIC and the menu shell on the HDD. I think
all the external commands and utilities usually supplied with DOS are
intact.

If I can find the floppies I made 10 years or so ago when I last had one of
these I should also have Solution 6 (some accounting package), Viatel
(videotext) terminal software, and maybe another version of DOS.

If anyone else needs anyone of this I can email copies.

I've never seen any Wang native games, though I do remember getting Infocom
text adventures and NetHack running. Did the games you have actually have
graphics or did they just use ASCII characters ala NetHack?

>We used Wang equipment in conjunction with VS80s (and
>later VS models) for e-mail internally as well as disk
>and print serving. Did you also get the VS networking
>card ?

I have those cards in the past (a two card set with BNC/TNC connectors from
memory) Wangs, but this one didn't come with them.
Judging by the stuff on the HDD I think this one spent its life as a
dedicated word processor. I think I do have the ISA version of that card
around here somewhere.

I last had these systems over 10 years ago. I bought a higher end version
of this system for $5 at a market. The 286 version with 8 slots, a 1.2MB
FDD and a 70MB MFM HDD. I played around with it for a while, but ended up
putting the drives in the 386-16 PC I had scrounged up. I was a kid with
no money back then, so 70MB was a big deal to me at the time. I shudder to
think of the machines I stripped back then for their drives. That 386 got
it's next upgrade when I installed a pair 120MB MFM drives, one pulled from
a Data General MV or some sort, the other from an ICL 68K unix box. My
Inboard/386 equipped XT got it's 40MB drive from a Xerox 6085...
Received on Sat May 31 2003 - 14:18:00 BST