An Wang

An Wang (1920 to 1990) was a Chinese-born American computer engineer, inventor and entrepreneur who founded Wang Laboratories. Born in Shanghai and educated in electrical engineering at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, he came to the United States in 1945 and earned a doctorate in applied physics at Harvard in 1948. While working with Howard Aiken he co-invented the pulse transfer controlling device that made magnetic core memory practical, and he sold that patent to IBM in 1955 for 500,000 dollars. He started his own engineering business in 1951 and built it over four decades from calculators into a leading maker of dedicated word processors and minicomputers, becoming one of the richest Americans of the 1980s. He also founded the Wang Institute of Graduate Studies and gave major gifts to Boston institutions, including the theatre that now carries his name.