Wang 1200

The Wang 1200 was built at a time when RAM was very expensive, as semiconductor RAMs were just beginning to edge out core memory as the cheapest solution. As a result, the 1200 had only 256 bytes of RAM. 100 bytes were used as an I/O buffer to the cassette tapes; 100 more were used to hold the line currently being edited or printed; the rest, presumably, were used by the microcode to hold working variables. This limitation greatly affected the style of editing. The 1200 had four main modes of operation: •RECORD •PLAY •TRANSFER •EDIT