Wang 4000 Computer
Before the Wang VS systems, before the Wang 2200, before the Wang 3300, came Wang's first programmable computer system, the Wang 4000. It was created in 1966 by Wang manager Frank Trantanella by repurposing much of the logic of the Wang calculator systems. To read a great account of the Wang 4000, please visit Rick Bensene's Old Calculator Museum, this page in particular, to learn more.
Wang Labs kept a small museum of Wang's history, including a number of their older machines. In the 1980s, when Wang was enduring some rough times, and after An Wang had retired, the museum was scrapped. Employee Bob Trottier was aghast at this but didn't have the room to save much of it, so he took a few pictures and saved a few mementos. He supplied the following photographs, some of which are also on Rick Bensene's site.
Pictures
The machine description above has image links scattered throughout. Here are links to the same pictures, labeled more clearly.
One of two Wang 4000 configurations
Wang 4000 in rackmount configuration
Wang 4000 backplane wiring
8 planes of 32x32 core memory, or 1 KB. It is interesting to note that Wang invented and patented the SIMM memory module, and this little guy looks like a precuror of it!
A ROM built from discrete diodes. It looks like 13 words of 15 bits
This is the front panel for one of the two Wang 4000 configurations. The image is not great because it was extracted from an image that had a huge amount of perspective distortion.
rackmount Wang 4000 indicator lamp closeup
Wang 4000 logic boards
closeup of Wang 4000 logic boards
Wang 4001 Arithmetic Unit label; note that it is misspelled
Feedback
If you have any more information about the Wang 4000, I'd love to hear about it. If you want to contact me for whatever reason, try me at jim@thebattles.net.