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 and used by Prime Computer as a word processing workstation; The "Prime Producer 100". The NGEN was known to Burroughs users as the B25, to Prime as the "Prime Producer 200", and was included the Intel 80186 CPU chip.

Later models kept pace with Intel CPU development through at least the Intel 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.

The Workslate, a very early portable computer which used a spreadsheet as the primary interface and included a mini-cassette for both voice and data recording, was also marketed by Convergent Technologies.

Convergent reached an agreement to acquire 3Com in March 1986, but the merger was called off at the last moment. Unisys bought Convergent Technologies in 1988, after which Convergent Technologies became Unisys' Network Systems Division.

This article was originally based on material from the Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, which is licensed under the GFDL.