AwardBIOS: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 12:38, 30 June 2024

AwardBIOS (also known as Award Modular BIOS and later as Phoenix - AwardBIOS) is a personal computer BIOS developed by Award Software from 1984 to 1998 and then by Phoenix Technologies from 1998 to 2009.

Merge with Phoenix Technologies

On April 16, 1998, Award Software announced a merger with Phoenix Technologies to create a $100 million BIOS development company. It was completed on September 28th of that year, and as a result, Award went bankrupt while Phoenix survived.

PhoenixNet controversy

Main page: PhoenixNet

In 2000, Phoenix developed an add-on for AwardBIOS called PhoenixNet, which allowed motherboard manufacturers and system labelers to advertise their services during POST, change the browser home page, and automatically install sponsored tools on the system after a clean Windows installation. It was heavily criticized by users for privacy concerns and performance issues on systems with it enabled. It was finally discontinued a year later 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.

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-AwardBIOS (also known as Award Modular BIOS and later known as Phoenix - AwardBIOS after the [[Phoenix Technologies Ltd|Phoenix Technologies]] merge of the company) is a [[Personal Computer BIOS]] developed by [[Award Software]] in 1984.
+AwardBIOS (also known as Award Modular BIOS and later as Phoenix - AwardBIOS) is a [[personal computer BIOS]] developed by [[Award Software]] from 1984 to 1998 and then by [[Phoenix Technologies]] from 1998 to 2009.
 == Merge with Phoenix Technologies ==
-On April 16, 1998, [[Phoenix Technologies Ltd|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.
+On April 16, 1998, [[Award Software]] announced a merger with [[Phoenix Technologies]] to create a $100 million BIOS development company. It was completed on September 28th of that year, and as a result, Award 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.
+In 2000, Phoenix developed an add-on for AwardBIOS called PhoenixNet, which allowed motherboard manufacturers and system labelers to advertise their services during POST, change the browser home page, and automatically install sponsored tools on the system after a clean Windows installation. It was heavily criticized by users for privacy concerns and performance issues on systems with it enabled. It was finally discontinued a year later due to [http://www.cexx.org/phoenix.htm| "the demise of the Internet advertising market"].
-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 [http://www.cexx.org/phoenix.htm|"the demise of the Internet advertising market"].
 == List of known versions ==