Centurion Overview

Warrex / Centurion had a very interesting business model backed by pretty capable hardware and application packages. What started as a small family startup by John Rex Warren and his brother-in-law Bud Smith, quickly grew into a large, capable minicomputer company employing at it's most approximately 300 people directly. The picture below shows from left to right, Terry Hall VP MFG., Henry Arnold III VP Eng., Bud Smith VP. Sales and John Rex Warren CEO, standing in front of an early CPU4 system with a single Hawk drive. Unfortunately, John Warren lost his life in a high speed car accident just a few years into Centurion's run, after which Bud Smith took over the reins as CEO.

However, one of Centurion's strongest traits was its dealer network. While Centurion Headquarters sold and maintained systems directly, they also had an extensive dealer network that would sell systems, build custom tailored application packages and maintain customer systems. Centurion's minicomputer systems were also often sold without monthly payment schedules, unlike other minicomputer manufacturers of the time. On top of all of that, the software was priced so competitively that it was often likened to being given away. As a result, the company was often just on the verge of bankruptcy several times throughout its short tenure.

Eventually Centurion got bought out by Ross Perot and EDS whereupon they continued to make Minicomputers as well as other machines at the behest of EDS. Unfortunately, a myriad of problems, including bad blood between Ross Perot and Bud Smith as well as a counterfeiting scandal, led to Centurion being sold off and eventually going bankrupt.

After being sold to ZTRon and ZTron subsequently going bankrupt, Centurion was sold to Cruze Computers who still currently hold the intellectual property rights to Centurion.

Check out the full timeline for a wild ride through the history of the company.

Key People to Building all this Information

Everything here, and really, the large majority of information we have learned about the machine, is all thanks to a few key Centurion employees who have lent us their fantastic memory to help reconstruct the history of this company.

• Ken Romaine: Field service engineer and manager (August 1975 to March 1986)
• David Williams: Programmer and design engineer (September 1977 to May 1993)
• Eric Lundquist: Programmer ()
• Bud Smith: VP of Sales, CEO of Warrex and Ztron (1971 to 1986)

Warrex/Centurion/EDS-Centurion/ZTRON MFG-HQ Locations

Below is a list of all the headquarter locations throughout Centurion's history. This list was possible due to Ken Romaine's stunningly good memory.

1974-1976 -> Warrex - North Central and Arapahoe, Richardson, TX

1976-1979 -> Centurion - @ old Daltile building Coit and Central, Dallas, TX

1979-1981 -> Centurion 1780 JayEll Dr, Richardson, TX

1981-1984 -> EDS-Centurion 1780 JayEll Dr, Richardson, TX (after 1986 EDS - T.P.D. site)

1984 -> EDS-Cent. software team moved from 1780 JayEll to Glenview & Arapahoe, Richardson, TX

1984 -> ZTRON - South Sherman, Richards, TX

1984-1986 -> ZTRON - Bethany Drive Allen Texas (and bankruptcy)

1986 - Present -> Cruze Computers (near) Knoxville Tennessee

Known Dealers

Centurion used an interesting sales model. Similar to an automotive manufacturer model, Centurion would build the computers and sell them to dealers with a standard application suite. The dealers would then create additional, tailor-made applications or modifications to fit their customer's needs, and then sell the machines with service packages. Unlike the automotive world, Centurion headquarters could still sell and service machines though. This did however create an environment that was difficult on Centurion monetarily.

The following is a list of known dealer locations, however this may not include all dealer locations. If you know of a dealer location that is not on this list, please contact me and I will update the list.

• San Antonio, Texas (A sister office of Warrex in the very early days, then became a Centurion Dealer)
• Dallas, Texas
• Ft. Worth, Texas
• Temple, Texas - Centurion Computers of Central Texas, owned by an optometrist named Dr. Voss
• Odessa, Texas
• Victoria, Texas
• Tulsa, Oklahoma
• Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
• Little Rock, Arkansas
• Baton Rouge, Louisiana
• Metairie, Louisiana
• Lakeland, Florida
• Miami, Florida
• Smyrna, Georgia
• Charlotte, North Carolina
• Cherry Hill, New Jersey
• Smithtown, New York
• Cincinnati, Ohio
• Knoxville, Tennessee
• Indianapolis, Indiana
• Denver, Colorado
• Salt Lake, Utah
• Burlingame, California
• Orange County, California
• Honolulu, Hawaii
• Bahrain, Kingdom of Bahrain
• Mexico City, Mexico