Wang 2200B computer
hoskinsa
Does anybody out there know anything about these machines? I have one of
these beasts heating my room at the moment and am curious to know if it
is possible to program it in machine code. I have the BASIC manuals but
these say nothing of it. The only reference to any language other than
BASIC is in the manual for an 8-bit interface board which mentions being
able to send 'microcode' instructions out to the board ($GIO followed by
hex digits I think; I'm at work and the manuals aren't).
Also, what processor do these use? Looking inside the machine I can't
find anything that looks like a microprocessor. (Is the machine too old
to have used one? The manual is dated 1973).
Thanks, Asher
(hosk...@prl.philips.co.uk)
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Computers are not intelligent, they just think they are...
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David Gurr
>Does anybody out there know anything about these machines? I have one of
>these beasts heating my room at the moment and am curious to know if it
>is possible to program it in machine code. I have the BASIC manuals but
>these say nothing of it. The only reference to any language other than
>BASIC is in the manual for an 8-bit interface board which mentions being
>able to send 'microcode' instructions out to the board ($GIO followed by
>hex digits I think; I'm at work and the manuals aren't).
Hoooo, boy. I used one of these suckers for some time. Wang are actually
still perpetuating the 2200 line (last time I heard) as the CS/386, containing
an 80386 simulating a 2200 .... barrrrrrfffffff.
It doesn't have machine code. The BASIC is hard-wired in. The $GIO commands
are simply for tweaking lines on the bus, commonly used for peripheral board
twiddles (disks, I/O cards etc).
There are no other languages (as far as I know). If you have vast reams of
2200 BASIC that you don't want to throw away, there are 2200 BASIC simulators
available for UNIX and DOS. Some of these even go as far as to extend the
language so that it becomes useful.
>Also, what processor do these use? Looking inside the machine I can't
>find anything that looks like a microprocessor. (Is the machine too old
>to have used one? The manual is dated 1973).
It doesn't have one. As far as I remember, it's implemented as discrete
custom chips. The processor board is just that ... the entire board is
the processor.
>Thanks, Asher
>(hosk...@prl.philips.co.uk)
You're welcome.
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>Computers are not intelligent, they just think they are...
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
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Dave Gurr ..!uunet!mcsun!ukc!slxsys!scol!davidgu
Santa Cruz Operation Ltd.
Disclaimer: All opinions expressed are those of the author's cat, not
necessarily those of the author, and almost certainly NOT those
of SCO Ltd. Miaouw.
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john cavallino
>Does anybody out there know anything about these machines? I have one of
>these beasts heating my room at the moment and am curious to know if it
>is possible to program it in machine code. I have the BASIC manuals but
>these say nothing of it. The only reference to any language other than
>BASIC is in the manual for an 8-bit interface board which mentions being
>able to send 'microcode' instructions out to the board ($GIO followed by
>hex digits I think; I'm at work and the manuals aren't).
The first computer I ever used was a WANG 2200B. That was in 7th grade,
in 1976. My exclusive (yecch) private school had gotten a grant or
something and had purchased one that year for student instruction and to
computerize the class schedules. The first year we had it, the only
printer was an IBM Selectric typewriter with a WANG nameplate on it, built
into a floor-stand. VERY slow, but you could do some neat ASCII graphics
with over-strikes. The next year the Selectric was replaced by a (dah-dah)
Dot Matrix Printer!! (oooh-ahhh) This was a huge loud monster that did
print faster (barely) than the Selectric, but had NO graphics capability!
That first year, the only mass storage options were paper tape (read-only,
we punched on stand-alone Teletypes in the next room) or these wierd data
cassettes that looked like regular audio casettes, but had reversable
write-lock tabs and were single-sided. They went into the tape-drive,
which was to the right of the video screen in the one-piece
keyboard-included console unit. The drive could scan and read these tapes
fairly rapidly. Each of us computer nerds had our own tape with our
programs (precursor of the NeXT floptical user-world-on-a-disk! :-).
The last year I was there (9th grade, 1978) the school bought a (please
don't faint) HARD DISK DRIVE. This unit was about the size of one of those
dorm-room refrigerators, and was kept in a locked room forbidden to mere
mortals (static electricity danger, I presume). I believe it had a
permanently mounted 12" platter. I have no idea of its storage capacity.
The 2200 was pretty weird. As has been stated, BASIC was its ONLY language.
The keyboard had a row of funny little function keys along the top that
were dedicated to controlling the full-screen editor, and which also allowed
single-keystroke entry of BASIC keywords. Ours had a full alphanumeric
keyboard, but an earlier model (I saw a picture in the manual) had this
TRULY BIZARRE keyboard with a rectangular array of square keys, each of
which was labeled with a BASIC keyword. To type regular characters you had to
press the shift.
The central processor was in this suitcase-sized chassis (it even had a
handle) that sat under the desk. I believe that later models had
everything built into the console unit.
The BASIC was actually not bad (NO graphics, but I discovered Conway's game
of Life on that machine, in glorious 64x20 ASCII). It even had MAT
statements and supported IMAGE and PRINT USING.
Then my family moved from New Jersey to Illinois, where my new high school
had this new-fangled Apple II thing, and I never heard of the WANG 2200 again.
Until now. Boy, does this take me back!
JohnC
--
John Cavallino | EMail: jc...@midway.uchicago.edu
University of Chicago Hospitals | USMail: 5841 S. Maryland Ave, Box 145
Office of Facilities Management | Chicago, IL 60637
B0 f++ w c+ g+ k s(+) e+ h- pv | Telephone: 312-702-6900
DJ Delorie
I remember these! I had one for a while. Had power supply
problems. The EEPROMS it used would blow up if you lost one
of the three supplies. It did have some nice features that
I still don't see in today's computers:
* Matrix functions as part of the language, including inversion.
* The disk operating system was just "there". It didn't boot -
it warmed up. As soon as the monitor came to life you saw
the "Ready" prompt waiting for you.
* There was a "format floppy" switch (not command - switch. Use a
pencil to push it type). Formatting involved no software, so your
program kept running.
* Amazingly fast text, using the $GIO function. I actually wrote
a few real-time BASIC "video" games for it.
* *Very* good editing features - had a row of keys dedicated to
editing functions - fwd/back char/word, ins, del, etc.
The 2200's (I had an 'E') had four main boards:
* CPU - lots of 74xx TTL's on it.
* disk - more 74xx's
* memory - 32Kx8 RAM and 48Kx20 ROM (read as "microcode")
* I/O - serial, centronics, video, etc.
Anthony J Stieber
>Hoooo, boy. I used one of these suckers for some time. Wang are actually
>still perpetuating the 2200 line (last time I heard) as the CS/386, containing
>an 80386 simulating a 2200 .... barrrrrrfffffff.
BASIC running under SCO Unix.
I've got a few of the 2200SVPA machines, big metal cases, with two DSDD
8" drives (1.2MB) each and monster power supplies. The drives seem to
be standard Shugarts. Anyone want to take one off my hands? I even
have a Wang terminal to along with it. Comes with a free copy of
insurance agent software.
--
<-:(= Anthony Stieber ant...@csd4.csd.uwm.edu uwm!uwmcsd4!anthony
Rich Alderson
>Does anybody out there know anything about these machines? I have one of
>these beasts heating my room at the moment and am curious to know if it
>is possible to program it in machine code. I have the BASIC manuals but
>these say nothing of it. The only reference to any language other than
>BASIC is in the manual for an 8-bit interface board which mentions being
>able to send 'microcode' instructions out to the board ($GIO followed by
>hex digits I think; I'm at work and the manuals aren't).
I have, on a contract, worked with these. They are BASIC machines: The only
thing they CAN do is interpret BASIC, because it's hardwired in.
>Also, what processor do these use? Looking inside the machine I can't find
>anything that looks like a microprocessor. (Is the machine too old to have
>used one? The manual is dated 1973).
They use the Wang 2200b processor. (No smiley.) This is a small minicomputer
class machine, built out of SSI (and MSI? maybe). It predates most micropro-
cessors, if not all. (I don't remember the intro date for the 4004.)
They CAN be used to do interesting hackery, but you have to be satisfied with
working in BASIC and playing with the raw I/O functions to have much fun.
--
Rich Alderson 'I wish life was not so short,' he thought. 'Languages take
Tops-20 Mgr. such a time, and so do all the things one wants to know about.'
AIR, Stanford --J. R. R. Tolkien,
alde...@alderson.stanford.edu _The Lost Road_
Robert Bernecky
>
>I still don't see in today's computers:
>
>* Matrix functions as part of the language, including inversion.
Ahem. APL has had array operations since day 0, including inversion,
transpose, scalar functions, and so on. We're only now getting hardware
than comes close to reflecting the architecture of APL (COnnection Machine,
Maspar).
Bob
Robert Bernecky r...@yrloc.ipsa.reuter.com bern...@itrchq.itrc.on.ca
Snake Island Research Inc (416) 368-6944 FAX: (416) 360-4694
18 Fifth Street, Ward's Island
Toronto, Ontario M5J 2B9
Canada
Norman Diamond
>In article <14...@balrog.ctron.com> d...@ctron.com writes:
>>I still don't see in today's computers:
>>* Matrix functions as part of the language, including inversion.
>Ahem. APL has had array operations since day 0,
Depending, of course, on your setting of [] I O
:-)
Incidentally, BASIC traditionally had matrix operations as part of the
language too -- with syntax different from, but equally ugly, as APL.
--
Norman Diamond dia...@tkov50.enet.dec.com
If this were the company's opinion, I wouldn't be allowed to post it.