Convergent Technologies (Unisys)
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Convergent Technologies was a company formed by a small group of people who left Intel Corporation and Xerox PARC in 1979. Convergent Technologies' first product was the IWS (Integrated Workstation) based on the Intel 8086, which ran Convergent Technologies Operating System - their first operating system. Convergent later used the Motorola 68010 in their MiniFrame, and later Motorola 68020 and 68040 processors in their VME-based MightyFrame systems, running a UNIX-like operating system called CTIX. Supplanting the IWS was the AWS (Advanced Workstation) which itself was replaced by the NGEN (New or Next Generation) workstation. The NGEN was known to Burroughs users as the B25, and was included the Intel 80186 CPU chip. Later models kept pace with Intel CPU development at least through the 80386 era. Convergent also developed the first Motorola 68010 OEM UNIX product for AT&T, and integrated a number features (Stream-based I/O, Multinational Language Support) to the Intel AT&T UNIX base (SVR3.2). CTOS and as a guest OS CTIX were also available on the Convergent MegaFrame, a multiple-CPU cooperative-processing machine that may have been in the super-minicomputer class of machines.
Unisys bought Convergent Technologies in 1988, becoming its Network Systems Division.
- This article was originally based on material from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, which is licensed under the GFDL.