An Wang

He met Lorraine Chiu at a party and they got married in 1949. They were blessed with three children; Frederick, Courtney and Juliet.

He founded the Wang Institute of Graduate Studies in 1979.He also helped in restoration of the Metropolitan Theater in Boston which was renamed as the ‘Wang Theater’ in 1983.

He died on March 24, 1990 in Boston, U.S. due to cancer.

He was born on February 7, 1920 in Shanghai, China to Zen Wan Wang, an English teacher and his wife, Yin Lu.

He was the oldest son of his family. He had an older sister, Hsu; a younger sister, Yu; and two younger brothers, Ping and Ge.

His formal education began at the age of six, when he was admitted to the third grade. He had a keen interest in science and mathematics and learned English from his father.

He completed his high school from Shanghai Provincial High School, one of the best schools in China. In 1940, he graduated from Chiao Tung University with a degree in electrical engineering.

He designed radio transmitters and receivers for China during World War II.

After his PhD, he started his work under Howard H. Aiken at the Harvard Computation Laboratory. He co-invented the pulse transfer controlling device which made magnetic core memory possible and filed the patent for it.

Through his patent, he earned substantial royalties from various computer manufacturers including IBM who used magnetic core memories.

In 1951, he founded his own electronic company ‘Wang Laboratories’ as a sole proprietorship. The first years were lean and company grew slowly by selling custom-built magnetic shift registers and the machines used for magnetic tape control.

He was awarded a core memory patent for his write-after-read cycle invention. He sold this patent to IBM for $500,000 and used the money to expand his company with a partner.

In mid 1960s, he invented a digital logarithmic converter that made it possible to perform routine arithmetic electronically at high speeds and relatively low cost. The company made huge profits selling the calculators designed with the help of his invention.

He was the co-creator of a pulse transfer control device. This used the magnetic field of the core to control the switching of the current in a magnetic core memory device.

He invented the write-after-read cycle. The process of reading the data stored in a magnetic core memory device destroys the data in what is called a destructive read out. The write-after-read cycle rewrote the data to the core making it more practical to use.

He founded Wang Laboratories which became a multi-billion dollar electronic company with 30,000 employees at one point.