Collection / brand

Brand: Wyse (1 machine)

A bit of history

Wyse Technology was founded in 1981 by Garwing Wu, Bernard Tse, and Grace Tse.The company became famous in the 1980s as a manufacturer of character terminals. Most of these terminals can emulate several other terminal types in addition to their native escape sequences.[10] These terminals were often used with library card catalogs such as Dynix.In 1983, Wyse began shipping the WY50, a terminal that was priced some 44 percent lower than its nearest competitor. It became their first big-selling product, and had a larger screen and higher resolution than competitor products at the time.[12] Following the WY50 was the WY60, the best-selling general purpose terminal of all time. In addition to standard character-mode operation, the WY60 supported box graphics that could be used to produce more attractive displays. The Wyse 99GT and 160 terminals added graphical capability through Tektronix 4014 emulation.The WY325 and 375 models added color support with Tektronix graphics.

In 1984, Wyse entered the personal computer marketplace. The first of these was the Wyse 1000, a computer based on the Intel 80186 (which did not see huge volumes because its integrated hardware was incompatible with the hardware used in the original IBM PC). Next came the WYSEpc, an IBM-compatible computer based on the 8088 processor, which had a good following due to its slim-line design. Later, Wyse introduced personal computers compatible with the IBM PC/AT based on the 80286 and 80386, which were top sellers. Wyse sold through 2-tier distribution, which limited growth in the late 1980s as mail order companies like Dell and Gateway entered the marketplace. In 1984 Wyse became one of the leaders in the general purpose text (GPT) terminal industry and on August 17, 1984, went public on the New York Stock Exchange. In the following years, Wyse added the PC product line Wyse pc3216. The Wyse 3216 was based on Intel's newest 386 chip. It sold for $1,500 less than a comparable Compaq DeskPro, $2,000 less than an IBM System 80, and performed at a higher speed than both. In 1989, Wyse developed LAN-attached communication devices.

On display here is 1 Wyse machine from the collection. Open a card to see its photographs, present configuration and technical specifications.

Wyse 2112
1980Wyse

2112

A Wyse text terminal intended for serial connection to multiuser computer systems.

CPU
Terminal controller
Memory
Terminal-local display memory
OS
Terminal firmware
Status
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