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
| 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(?) | 
|
Probably considered as AwardBIOS v5.00 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. |
