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+ Historical Personal Computers
+
An often posed question is that of how to define the notion of a "personal
+computer". We would answer like this: "A personal computer is a single-user
+system with attached display (back then typically a CRT) and a suitable
+complement of peripherals to store and retrieve data and for input/output of
+data and programs. It is also easily transportable."
+
+One of the first personal computers, PC for short, is the WANG 2200 A/B dating
+back to 1973. Wang realized pretty early that a key component for such a device
+was an electronic display capable of displaying multiple lines at once.
+Comparable HP systems from that time only had a single line LED-display. A nice
+comparison between these two types of machines can be found here:
+ HP competitive Analysis 9830 vs WANG 2200B (PDF)
+This is, in fact, a comparison performed by HP and was suited to aid the
+salesperson when he or she faced a situation where HP had to compete agains a
+Wang offer. HP and WANG were THE opponents in these days when it came to
+scientific calculators and early PCs.
+ The system 2200 and its successors featured a plethora of peripheral devices as
+well as a vast library of programs for a variety of scientific and commercial
+problems. Though, there was no assembler or access to machine language at all.
+The system was programmed in a BASIC dialect.
+
+ The system on display here is unique in Germany with its set of peripheral
+devices: Paper tape reader (2203), card reader (2234), marker card reader
+(2214), triple 8 inch diskette drive (2270.3) and a disk subsystem (2230-1)
+with 14 inch disks. The weight of the disk subsystem alone is about 100 kg, and
+it cost a whopping 24 000 DM back in its days. Its total capacity is 5 MB for
+programs and data.
This new acquisition (December 2017) is a smaller version of the WANG 2200B,
+built in 1974/75, the "S" probably denoting "small". The additional magnetic
+tape unit (2217) allows to store 1.7 kB of data on one meter of tape at a
+transfer rate of 326 characters/second. It is equipped with three independent
+motors and capable of reading/writing in both directions. The tape is always
+written/read in blocks of 256 bytes. As slow as it is, the low price of the
+storage media more than compensated for that.
+
+Also interesting is the golf-ball typewriter as output device. Thanks to the
+unique stepper motor driven mechanics, the system can also be used to plot
+graphs. The model 2202 is identical with the model 702 typically used in
+conjunction with a WANG 700 system.
We would like to express our thanks to the "Westfaelische Wilhelms-Universitaet +Muenster" who donated this system.
+ + +