The Highly Collectible Keyboards of The Convergent IWS/AWS Workstations 64-00164

December 10, 2020 eBay Auction thread (started by me)

eBay Auction                    Auction Archive              Bid History

for $192.50 + $24.73 Standard Shipping = $217.23

Interestingly, that's more than we paid for our first AWS machine on eBay, which was only $125 shipping included, I think [I shall verify with my archives].

December 25, 2019 Deskthority.net member MMcM restoration report:

"Convergent Technologies and Negative Serial"

And what really gets me is this magical device that his keyboard is plugged into:

November 21, 2011 Deskthority.net member HaaTa report:

Where is this keyboard from?

Notice that they found Gerald Hawkins' (AKA MathTeacherGuy's) 1981 Convergent Technologies photos, which have long been featured in the footer over at MightyFrame.com

Also note my reply on this thread in 2017, shortly after we acquired our first AWS.

It seems that this keyboard is also extremely well photographed and posted on Flickr by Jacob Alexander (note this flicker URL contains the phrase "triplehaata", perhaps indicating a connection between this flicker user and the deskthority user HaaTa).  This also visually appears to be the same keyboard.  And amazingly nice photography, Jacob!

Convergent 64-000164

(Adding photos from this Flickr page soon)

Also Reference:
https://deskthority.net/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=25405

It is my hope that we work with the collectors of these keyboards, so that the machines

Jesse Booth's Disk Analysis with Scott Baker's CTOS Tool

Dec 17, 2020, 6:23 PM 

Looking for anything CTOS on github, I stumbled across this from Scott Baker (the NGEN guy):

https://github.com/sbelectronics/ctostool

I ran it on the raw image of that B20CL8-1 disk ('python2 ctostool.py B20.RAW dump'). Could be a useful tool in case you hadn't already run across it.

This was the output of the dump command:

Dr. Scott Baker's NGEN Restoration

This site is intended to be about the Convergent IWS/AWS systems, not the NGEN systems.  However, that said, in the documenting and restoration of these systems, the NGEN systems will be impossible to ignore, for several reasons:

1) The AWS systems are clearly the predecessor of the NGEN systems in so many ways.

2) Resources for the NGEN are far more plentiful across the internet than on the AWS.

And the most shining example of reason #2 is the fantastic restoration documentation done earlier this year by Dr. Scott Baker.  He is very thorough in many ways, and is the first to demonstrate the restoration and operation of this system on YouTube.  Something I personally value very highly, because reading about it is great, I really want to SEE it.  So thank you, Dr. Baker, for doing the restoration, documenting it so well on your website pages AND on YouTube.  So this post/page will be dedicated to cataloging his resources in an easy-to-find single location for me, and hopefully for others!  Here we go...

Restoring a Convergent Technologies NGEN PC/Workstation (Burroughs B25 / Unisys)

Convergent Technologies CTOS/BTOS hints, tips, and notes

The First Floppy to Finally Boot our AWS!

Updated January 8, 2020:

Today, we just got CTOS installed and running for the first time (we *think* in the 21st century!) on a Convergent Technologies AWS Turbo machine.

So where did we get these floppy disks from?  And what exactly are the binaries (and flux transitions!) contained on them?  Well, this page aims to answer ALL of those questions...

First, THE Disk:

10.2 STANDARD SOFTWARE AWS INITIALIZATION Disk 1 of 1 Part No. 71-01436-01

To download/use ALL of the floppy disks we used for this install, 

you can download them from this Google Drive Folder.

Just let us know how you used them, and how they helped you!

eBay user trudy14410 & Burroughs B20? Boot Disk - John Mulac

See Also: BURROUGHS/UNISYS BTOS B25 TAPE CARTR. W/8.0 MULTIUSER,EMULTI,ISAM,SWP4,GAMES

eBay - trudy14410 <trudy1_jwnb6255raf@members.ebay.com>

Sep 3, 2019, 12:43 PM - eBay

New message from: trudy14410 (565Purple Star)

I am sending you a boot disk that can be used to initialize the hard drive. The parameter sheet is also enclosed for the different size drives. Most of the parameters for the size of the operating system have a default size but if you want more room for the system image, you can change it during the initialize and format of the disk. Remember that any data on the disk will be lost unless you can copy it off before initializing. Most of the MFM disks seem to lose it's magnetic retentivity after 2 - 3 years and have to be reformatted. At least that is my experience. Floppies can also lose theirs too, so I hope that my disk is still usable. I have included a 5-1/4 cleaning disk that you can use 91% isopropol alcohol to wet the windows slightly for cleaning. Let alcohol evaporate before using!

Hope it works!!! John Mulac

PS If you have a working QIC drive, I have 60MB tape cartridges with 8.0 operating systems on them to restore to your drives for $50 - Thanks

Convergent Technologies IWS, AWS & AWS Turbo specs

Thanks to Jesse Booth for his research and compilation of this data!

Family

Model Name

Processor

Speed

Co-Processor

Floppy

Hard Disk

RAM (base)

RAM (max)

ROM

Video

Resolution

RS-232-C

RS-422

Centronics

OS

AKA

Notes

IWS

8086

8"

8"

custom

Floor unit

WS-110

1982

AWS

AWS-220

8086

5 MHz?

no

Intel-based

1981

AWS

AWS-230

8086

5 MHz?

Intel-based

1981

AWS

AWS-240

8086

5 MHz?

yes

Intel-based

1981

AWS Turbo

AWS-215

8086

8 MHz

n/a

none

none

256KB

512KB

4KB

80x28 (char)

0

1

0

CTOS

Burroughs B20

Cluster station

AWS Turbo

AWS-225

8086

8 MHz

n/a

one 5-1/4"

none

256KB

512KB

4KB

80x28 (char)

2

1

1

CTOS

Burroughs B20

Cluster station

AWS Turbo

AWS-235

8086

8 MHz

n/a

two 5-1/4"

none

256KB

512KB

4KB

80x28 (char)

2

1

1

CTOS

Burroughs B20

Standalone, Cluster station

AWS Turbo

AWS-245

8086

8 MHz

n/a

one 5-1/4"

5.6MB

256KB

512KB

4KB

80x28 (char)

2

1

1

CTOS

Burroughs B20

Master station, Standalone, Cluster station

AWS Turbo

AWS-255

8086

8 MHz

n/a

one 5-1/4"

9.2MB

256KB

512KB

4KB

80x28 (char)

2

1

1

CTOS

Burroughs B20

Master station, Standalone, Cluster station

AWS Turbo

AWS-265

8086

8 MHz

n/a

one 5-1/4"

13.2MB

256KB

512KB

4KB

80x28 (char)

2

1

1

CTOS

Burroughs B20

Master station, Standalone, Cluster station

Burroughs B20 running Microsoft Windows?

 And yet, here it is, as part of an article in the December 1983 Byte magazine, written by Phil Lemmons...