Fulfilling its commitment to offer a broad range of products for the desktop publishing market, Wang Laboratories has introduced the first two members of a new family of personal computers, along with a laser printer and Aldus Corp’s PageMaker software operating under Microsoft Windows. The new Professional Computer line consists of two basic models, the 80286-based PC 280 and the 80386-based PC 380. The boxes run MS-DOS 3.2, which is bundled in with a system purchase, as well as AT-compatible multi-user operating systems. The 10MHz PC 280, switchable down to 6MHz or 8MHz, has six 16-bit and two 8-bit slots – one of each is taken up a standard colour/monochrome controller and a hard+floppy disk controller. With one serial and one parallel port, 640Kb RAM expandable to 10.5Mb, AT-style keyboard, and 1.2Mb floppy the PC 280 goes for a daunting $3,850. Add a 34Mb hard drive to the line-up and it costs $4,875. The 16MHz PC 380 is switchable down to 8MHz; it offers two 32-bit, four 16-bit and two 8-bit slots, with one of each taken for the cards, including a 2Mb expanded memory card. With 2.5Mb RAM, the two ports, keyboard, and floppy drive, it is $6,495. That rises to $8,495 with a 68Mb hard disk drive. All models in the new Professional Computer line are available now. A complete Wang Desktop Publishing System is made up of Aldus’s PageMaker publishing software under Windows, one of the new machines, a mouse, and a new Wang laser printer. The LCS15 printer supports Adobe Systems’ PostScript page description language and prints 15 pages per minute. It costs a whopping $8,000. Wang also plans an assault on the high-end integrated electronic publishing market under its September 1986 OEM pact with Sun Microsystems that allows it to offer Sun-3 workstations as part of a Wang publishing system. Wang intends to offer a package in which Sun-3s, supporting composition software from Texet Corp, will be linked over an Ethernetwork to a Wang VS computer serving as a host and communications server.
