Li-Chen Wang


Li-Chen Wang is an American computer engineer, best known for his Palo Alto Tiny BASIC for Intel 8080-based microcomputers. He was a member of the Homebrew Computer Club and made significant contributions to the software for early microcomputer systems from Tandy Corporation and Cromemco.

Palo Alto Tiny BASIC

Palo Alto Tiny BASIC was the fourth version of Tiny BASIC that appeared in Dr. Dobb's Journal of Computer Calisthenics & Orthodontia, but probably the most influential. It appeared in the May 1976 Vol 1, No. 5 issue, and distinguished itself from other versions of Tiny BASIC through a novel means of abbreviating commands to save memory, and the inclusion of an array variable. The interpreter occupied 1.77 kilobytes of memory and assumed the use of a Teletype Machine for user input/output. An erratum to the original article appeared in the June/July issue of Dr. Dobb's This article also included information on adding additional I/O devices, using code for the VDM video display by Processor Technology as an example.
Wang also wrote a STARTREK program in his Tiny BASIC that appeared in the July 1976 issue of the People's Computer Company Newsletter.

Tandy Corporation

The original prototype TRS-80 Model I that was demonstrated for Charles Tandy to sell the idea ran Li-Chen's BASIC.
Wang's mark also shows up in and on the Exatron Stringy Floppy ROM for the TRS-80 Model I. Embedded Systems columnist Jack Crenshaw calls Wang's Manchester encoding code, achieving 14K read/write speeds, a "work of art."

Cromemco

The first color graphics interface for microcomputers, developed by Cromemco and called the Dazzler, was introduced in 1976 with a demonstration program called "Kaleidoscope" written by Wang. According to BYTE Magazine the program, written in 8080 assembly code, was only 127 bytes long. But this short program stopped traffic on 5th Avenue in New York City.
Stan Veit was the owner of The Computer Mart in New York City. He placed a color television in his store window displaying the colorful, ever-changing kaleidoscopic patterns generated by the Dazzler and Wang's software. According to Veit: “People driving by began to stop and look – they had never seen anything like it before. In a short time the Dazzler had caused a traffic jam on 5th Avenue!” The police had to contact the building landlord and make him disconnect the television.
Wang also developed "3K Control Basic" for Cromemco.

Other contributions

Wang also created WSFN, a programming language for controlling robots and published by Dr. Dobb's Journal in September 1977.
In 2001 Wang was re-elected for a second term as chair of the Infrared Data Association's Technical and Test committee. In 2004 Wang was employed as Chief Technical Officer at ACTiSYS in Fremont, California, focused on IR/mobile products.