Anecdotes re: Wang:
A buddy of mine worked for Wang back in the early 80s I guess, some kind
of marketing job, back when Dr. Wang was still running the place. He
was a very quiet and humble man, but really smart. They were getting
stomped by IBM, even with their advanced word processors and computers,
so it was time to address that problem. They hired some high-end
marketing consultant to put together a plan. So they worked on this
plan for awhile and came to do a presentation about it. Dr. Wang was
there, along with various staff members. Some marketing babe from the
consultant was up giving the pres and gets to the part where they had
come up with their tag lines for a new marketing campaign, the babe was
going through them, there was active discussion about each idea, and
gets to one suggestion, "Wang: The chink in IBM's armor."
The room goes silent, the babe is standing there knowing something bad
just happened but is very confused and bewildered. Everyone is trying
their best to look at their shoes. After a minute or so of sitting very
quietly, Dr. Wang says, "Thank you very much for your presentation. I
don't think we will be using your company for going forward" and gets up
and walks out. The babe is still standing there clueless when everyone
leaves the room silently.
Along about that time I suppose, I had met his son, who was a good
friend of this girl I knew, she had gone to prep school with him. He
was incredibly full of himself, fairly dissolute (and drove a Mercedes
at the time!), spoiled rich kid, exactly the opposite of his dad. I
think he had some role at the company along about then but daddy did not
think too highly of him. There might have been another son too, who was
a bit sharper. In any case, the company pretty much folded up not long
after that, I'm not sure what happened to them all. The company I was
working for hired a coupla people who had worked there.
--FT
On 2/8/18 10:42 AM, Andrew Strasfogel wrote:
First automatic calculator I ever saw was a desktop Wang back in '68
or '69 at the U of Minn. in the grad. geology dept. It sat on the
dept. chair's desk like some sort of holy relic; the faculty took
turns using it.
--
--FT
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