AwardBIOS: Difference between revisions

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|1994(?)
|1994(?)
|[[File:AwardBIOS_Power1_00.png|300px]]
|[[File:AwardBIOS_Power1_00.png|300px]]
|Probably considered as AwardBIOS v5.00 by Award.
|Considered as AwardBIOS v5.00 internally by Award.
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|-
|[[AwardBIOS v6.00PG]]
|[[AwardBIOS v6.00PG]]

Revision as of 07:02, 1 August 2023

AwardBIOS (also known as Award Modular BIOS and later known as Phoenix - AwardBIOS after the Phoenix Technologies merge of the company) is a Personal Computer BIOS developed by Award Software in 1984.

Merge with Phoenix Technologies

On April 16, 1998, Phoenix Technologies acquired Award Software to create a $100M BIOS firm. It was completed on September 28 of the same year and both companies merged. As a result of the merge, Award Software went bankrupt, while Phoenix survived.

PhoenixNet controversy

Main page: PhoenixNet

In 2000, Phoenix developed an add-on for AwardBIOS called PhoenixNet, which gave motherboard manufacturers and system OEMs to advertise their services, change the browser home page and automatically install sponsored system tools on the system after a Windows 9x installation.

PhoenixNet was heavily criticized among enthusiasts for privacy concerns and performance issues on systems with it enabled. Eventually, the add-on was discontinued in 2001 due to "the demise of the Internet advertising market".

List of known versions

List of known AwardBIOS versions
Version Release date POST screen Notes
AwardBIOS 1.xx 1984? Not available Confirmed existence by a file of a BIOS version database. No ROM files or pictures are available for it as of now.
AwardBIOS 2.xx 1985
AwardBIOS 3.xx 1987 Siemens-Nixdorf fork exists.
AwardBIOS v4.00 1990 Mostly used on motherboards with EISA expansion buses
AwardBIOS v4.20/4.26/4.28/4.32 1991-1992 4.26/4.28/4.32 might have been only used by Gateway 2000/Swan/Anigma.
AwardBIOS v4.50 1993

Not to be confused with EliteBIOS, early versions have blue POST screen while later versions have black EliteBIOS POST screen but with v4.50 version number.
AwardBIOS v4.50xx/v4.51xx/v4.60xx 1994 Codenamed "EliteBIOS".
Award PowerBIOS 1994(?) Considered as AwardBIOS v5.00 internally by Award.
AwardBIOS v6.00PG 1998-1999 Codenamed "Medallion". Also known as Award Modular BIOS v6.00PG and Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG. Code forks from ASUS and Gigabyte do exist. A sub-version called WorkstationBIOS also exists.