The death on Saturday of Dr An Wang found his heirs moving quickly to quell takeover speculation by vowing to retain voting control of the company he created, Wang Laboratories Inc. Wang family trusts control 82.8% of the publicly-traded Class C stock, which controls the board and counts tenfold in other votes. They also have 22.9% of the Class B non-voters. Dr Wang, who died of cancer of the oesophagus, was born in Shanghai, and went to the US during World War II to take a PhD at Harvard. He invented core memory, the mainstay of mainframe and minicomputer main memories until the mid-1970s, and held 39 other patents. He was a major benefactor to the arts, health and education in the Boston area. The Wang board meets tomorrow to appoint a successor chairman and chief executive.
