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The machine boots MS-DOS 3.20 then loads a WANG menu program which I found
to be rather clumsy to use. The clumsiness comes from a few extra keys on the keyboard
that aren't found on typical PC/XT/AT layouts. These keys only work in the Wang
menu system and Wang applications. Two of the extra keys are Exec and Cancel.
In the Wang menus and applications the Exec key acts like the standard Enter key
and the Cancel acts a lot like Escape. In the Wang menus you must use the
Exec key to
select programs. The Enter key has no function here. To back out of a menu you must
hit the Cancel key. The Escape key does nothing. In other words... Wang did
not want their applications to be run on a standard PC's or clones. The software
would be useless on any computer lacking the Exec and Cancel keys as it would
be impossible to maneuver thought the menus. Perhaps Wang was hoping their software would
sell more computers? The extra keys do nothing in 3rd party applications
and the Enter and Escape keys function as they do on other PC's and clones.
It's always fun to see how old computers deal with the year 2000.
I tried to enter the correct date from the Wang menu system. When I entered "05" for
the year it fussed and said that it was invalid. I tried changing the date in DOS
and it accepted 2005 as the year. However, when I went back into the menu system the
year was shown as 55. In the menu system, I then set the date and time to 5 minutes
before the year 2000, rebooted, and waited. At midnight the time rolled over to 0
hours as expected. The month, date, and year stayed at 12/31/99.
The LCD screen is nice and easy to read. Snooping around a bit it appeared that the
last time that this computer had been used was 15 years go in 1990. The whopping 10mb
winchester drive was only half full and had numerous applications installed. Including a 1985
version of Lotus 123. It really surprised me as to how quiet this machine is while
in operation. Much quieter than many newer laptops that I have used. I ran the
diagnostic program that came with the machine and this unit passes all self test.
The only thing questionable was the built in printer test. It passed but never tried
to print anything. After the machine ran for a few hours, I got brave...
I unplugged it from the wall. It didn't die! It actually ran off the old
Ni-Cads. In fact it ran almost 2 hours off the batteries before it started
beeping at me and fussing about the batteries being low. Of course it was just
sitting there doing nothing. But still, those old Ni-Cads impressed me.
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