AwardBIOS

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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.

Phoenix acquisition

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.


List of known versions

List of known AwardBIOS versions
Version Release date POST screen Notes
AwardBIOS 1.xx 198? Asummed to exist, yet no ROM files for it as of 2022.
AwardBIOS 2.xx 1986? Few ROM files and photos for this BIOS are available.
AwardBIOS 3.xx 1987
AwardBIOS v4.00 1991 Only used on some EISA ASUS boards.
AwardBIOS v4.20/4.26/4.28/4.32 1992 4.26/4.28/4.32 might be used by Gateway 2000/Swan/Anigma.
AwardBIOS v4.50 1993

Not to be confused with EliteBIOS, early versions have blue POST while later ones have EliteBIOS POST but with v4.50.
Award EliteBIOS (v4.50G/v4.50PG/v4.51xx/v4.60xx) 1994 v4.51PGN boards have PhoenixNet built-in.
Award Modular/Medallion BIOS v6.00xx 1998

Medallion BIOSes were only used on ASUS, Gigabyte, and Supermicro motherboards, and have PhoenixBIOS-like setup. v6.00PGN boards have PhoenixNet built-in.
Award WorkstationBIOS v6.00PG Early 2000s