John Rex Warren had a knack for programming Litton tape drive based computers and slowly started to build up a small name for himself in writing software for these machines
Bud was working as a detective and Bud’s sister was married to John Warren
Litton Industries decided to drop support for their systems and John saw an opportunity
1971:
Warrex Computers was created by Bud Smith and John Rex Warren using $4,400 (half Bud’s severance pay, half John’s money - $33,438 in Oct 2023 money) in San Antonio, Texas
Warrex Computers was incorporated with John, Bud and Bud’s sister as the co-founders
John was a notoriously sketchy person however, often using company funds to buy himself fancy toys, or spending time with one of his many girlfriends
1972:
John meets with Terry Hall, Henry Arnold and Bob Wohlander in San Antonio, who were ex-Litton employees
Terry knew manufacturing, Henry and Bob knew engineering, John knew programming and Bud knew business and marketing
This combination of skills allowed Warrex to get off the ground
At some point in the early 1970s, Warrex relocated to Dallas, Texas
This team provided new software packages and tech. support to customers that had Litton computers
The EE200:
One day Bud gets a call from a Bank who is a customer and they want a new computer
They’re sick of how difficult and unreliable the Litton is
They want Warrex’s programs and support on a new machine
The Eldorado Electrodata design featured three CPU cards on a passive backplane
This was called the EE200 and was the primary hardware used by Centurion for many years
The Warrex teams figures they can work with this hardware
Warrex then became an official Eldorado Electrodata dealer
Warrex, Fedder Data Centers and (we believe) Computer Development Inc. (CDI/IPC) all three became dealers for Eldorado
The three dealers had a contract that if Eldorado failed, they would receive perpetual rights to continue producing the technology (the EE200)
Warrex sold EE200 systems with a Sykes drive and core memory
Bud quits Warrex and then joins again after a month
John was continually stealing money from the company and Bud had had enough
John desperately need Bud, and Bud needed the money, so Bud rejoined
However, Bud made John sign a 5-page contract that forced him to be less shady
After a few months of selling and maintaining EE200 based tape systems, Henry, Terry and Bob become partners
John = 30%, Bud = 30%, Henry = 13.3%, Terry = 13.3%, Bob = 13.3%
John wrote powerful accounting and inventory software packages that ran on the EE200 tape based systems
Eldorado goes bust and control of technology is handed over to Warrex, Fedder and CPI
Additionally, Eldorado had built a huge number of backplanes and CPU boards and this stock was redistributed among the dealers who gained control of the technology
1973:
Bob Christensen (BC) and Steve Webking get hired sometime around early 1973 for engineering work
It features 10MB of storage, 5MB removable and 5MB fixed
The platters spin at 2,400 RPM and seek times are lightning fast
The First Warrex/Centurion Computer
John Warren started writing the random-access Operating System (notably JCL)
Getting the EE200 based hardware to work with the Hawk drive proved difficult
The EE200 had some random-access issues and required redesigning a bit to work better with Hawk
DMA access was also necessary and so a fourth board was dedicated to that (supplied by David Fedder)
The CPU4 system was so named because it utilized four cards - three CPU cards and a DMA card
Warrex built a fake case that looked fancy and got a beautiful model (Jan Gibson) to pose with it at SMU (this brochure specifically)
This photo and brochure was used as a bargaining tool to build a line of credit with CDC for Hawk Drives
CDC gave Warrex a $200,000 line of credit (approx. $1.4 million in Oct 2023 money)
Warrex started selling the first CPU4 systems
CPU: Modified EE200 CPU cards + DMA card
Memory: 4k core Fedder built 16k DRAM
Storage: 9427 Hawk and Sykes tape compatible
Communication: Typewriter interface
Peripherals: Typewriter (Selectric?) and Centronics 101 Printer using parallel interface
1974:
Warrex moves into a building off North Central and Arapahoe, Richardson, TX
In late 1973/early 1974 Warrex joined a trade show in El Paso, debuting the CPU4 system
Warrex was the only vendor using the Hawk
The lightning fast drive combined with John’s powerful applications meant that Warrex absolutely killed it at the show
They were taking orders for systems at the actual show
Warrex was involved in some litigation with IBM in 1974, unsure as to what
Bud was unfamiliar with this litigation
We believe it was potentially against John for non-payment of something
Warrex starts selling Centurion computers all over the state of Texas
Bud Smith is working very closely with CDC to continue receiving drives
At one point, Bud sold two systems, but only had one Hawk drive
They would install it for a few days at one customer’s location, then say it had a problem, and carry it over to the other customer’s location for a few days
They kept up this lie of Hawk “problems” to share the drive between two customers long enough to get a second drive
As the company grew and demand for systems increased, they needed more space
They moved to their location on Arapaho
1975:
Ken Romaine joins Centurion as 6th employee and first non-family employee
Ken approached Warrex looking for a job opportunity and they asked him if he could repair a broken 9427 Hawk drive
He successfully repaired it, got the job, and worked with Centurion from August 1975 to March 1986
Warrex was using the Hawk disk controller model “A” Disk Controller from Fedder Data Systems
The Fedder model “A” Hawk Disk Controller had design problems causing data to occasionally be written in the wrong disk sectors
This forced Warrex to design their first PCB’s the DSK/AUT and DSK-II (p/n 1001 & pn 1002)
These would read the Sector Address “before” writing data into a sector, solving the problem
Warrex designed its first memory PCB to replace the EE200 4KB core memory & Fetter’s 16KB memory cards.
The Warrex 32KB memory board (p/n 1003) was a 4-layer PCB using TI’s 22 pin 4K bit DRAM memory chip.
The 2nd engineering prototype 32K memory burned up damaging all DRAM chips because of a mod-wire error on the refresh timer circuit (otherwise known as Ken's smoke test)
Warrex designed its first 4-Port MUX as well as Parallel Printer Interface
1976:
Warrex built the wood cabinet tops and sides, as well as the CRT tables in their own dedicated woodworking shop
The shop caught fire and nearly bankrupted the company in early 1976
Some CPU4 PCB artwork was on the drafting table at the time of the fire and was subsequently lost in the fire
As a result of the fire and loss of the artwork, Warrex designed replacement 4-layer PCBs for the CPU1, 2, 3 and DMA cards
Now Warrex had its own CPU1, 2, 3 and DMA cards now on 4-layer PCB’s not 2-layer PCBs
Centurion moves into the old Daltile building at Coit and Central, Dallas, TX
John Rex Warren was driving through west Texas when a tire blew and he was killed in a car crash
John was driving a 1975 C3 Corvette at triple digits through west Texas heading from Odessa to Midland
John had an old girlfriend in Midland he wanted to visit
The police estimated at least 140 MPH
The Vette had Firestone tires and the Warren family got into legal battles with Firestone & GM
Ken Romaine was supposed to join John that night, but he had service calls in East TX that kept him to Midland / Odessa (whoa!)
After John’s death, the company name changed from Warrex to Centurion
Centurion is the “Guardian of the People’s Data” (according to Bud)
Rumor is the employees liked the cop movie “The New Centurions”
Around this time, Jerry Coolridge of Litton Industries left the company and took around 9 other Litton employees with him
Jerry approached Bud about working with Warrex/Centurion
This original group of 10 became the first Centurion dealers
Almost overnight, Centurion had a far reaching dealer network
1977 ~ 1978:
Steve Jobs and Bill Gates approached Bud at the West Coast Computer Faire about implementing a GUI, however Bud declined
The CPU5 was developed Steve Webking
The CPU5 featured a much more evolved ISA based on the AM2901 using microcode
It was constructed with two cards sandwiched together (like the FFC)
Jim McGee and Steve Pool were the OS Software engineers around this time
1979:
Centurion moves to a building at 1780 JayEll Dr, Richardson, TX
The CPU6, developed by Steve WebKing, releases in the Centurion 6000
Centurion attends large minicomputer seminar in California
They did well with good software packages and strong hardware
EDS was in attendance and first heard of Centurion here
Smart MUX cards development began
AM2901 based MUX cards that allowed up to 16(?) serial connections per card
The smart MUX cards unfortunately were too cost prohibitive and were never completed
In response to the failed Smart MUX cards, David Williams developed an 8-port MUX card
Centurion Reel to Reel Tape Drive interface developed by David Williams
Centurion gets a mention in the book “The Soul of a New Machine” by Tracy Kidder when they describe the big New York computer show
"But I saw many other names, passing by. Among others, I saw Centronics, Nortronics, Key Tronic, Tektronix and also General Robotics. There were Northern Telecom and Infoton and Centurion, which had a fellow dressed as a Roman soldier standing by its booth." - Tracy Kidder
Centurion had hired an actor to dress like a Roman Centurion for the show booth
Eric L. recalls seeing the costume in someone's office at one time
In November of 1980, Centurion was in Las Vegas for a convention and around 30 Centurion employees were staying at the MGM Grand Hotel
A refrigerated pastry display case on the first floor malfunctioned and caught fire
Bud was fortunately still awake and managed to get out with his wife, as did all the other Centurion employees
The EDS Buyout Begins
In late 1980, Bud Smith goes to a venture capital conference in California
He gives a presentation to 350 venture capitalists
His presentation is good enough that several attending want to set up meetings with Bud
Bud returns from the conference in California and the very next day there is a mystery man in his office
This mystery man tells Bud that he needs to meet with his client this afternoon, but only if he promises to cancel all his other appointments with the people from California
Bud laughs and tries to kick him out, but the mystery man is very important
He won’t tell Bud who his client his, but Bud starts to get the picture that the client is a very important person
Later that afternoon, the important client strolls in
It’s none other than Ross Perot flanked by his #2 and #3 in charge
Perot wants to buy Centurion
Bud is reluctant and negotiations start
Bud’s primary focus is to protect his dealer network, which is now quite large
Perot claims he wants to just help Centurion grow without changing anything
Negotiations lasted for approximately three months
During the negotiations, Bud dealt almost exclusively with Bill Gayden
They would meet multiple times per week at a high-scale French restaurant to hammer out the deal
Centurion was estimated by EDS to be valued at around 15 million USD
1981 ~ 1982:
Early January 1981, the EDS buyout goes through and Centurion becomes a wholly owned subsidiary of EDS
Bud got a substantial pay increase (from around 100k to 500k per year)
Bud also had to sign a no-compete clause that he would not produce IT products for 4-years after leaving if he decides to leave EDS, this is important later
During this time Centurion grew to be quite large, totaling around 300 direct employees
The dealer network also was a not insubstantial number of people
The CPU6 was still going strong being further developed by Steve Webking
AM2901 based architecture with 56-bit microword
Clocked at 5 MHz
Still fully backwards compatible with EE200 ISA
Fully fleshed out CPU6 ISA features several interesting capabilities
Centurion 8-inch Disk Drive Interface and Streamer tape interface developed by David Williams
Centurion also started development of the MicroPlus
4-Slot Backplane - David Williams
Membrane switch Front panel - David Williams
Dual Floppy or 8 inch Drive with Floppy or 8 Inch Drive with 8 Inch Streaming Tape Drive
64k, 128K, or 256k Memory Board - Steve Webking
The MicroPlus was sold to CUDNA Credit Unions
Centurion was also designing an Intel based PC for EDS that never made it to production
Engineering was told that EDS used it as leverage to get reduced pricing from IBM
Somewhere in here Centurion did a port of Unix to the CPU6
However (as we recall) there wasn’t enough memory run any applications, all they could do was boot Unix
Steve once mentioned to Eric L. that EDS was able to get Unix to boot on a CPU6 but the performance was not good so they quietly dropped the project
There was also an attempt to contract a COBOL compiler to be written for the CPU6 that eventually was dropped
Diag Board for CPU5/6 designed and built (Hardware design by David Williams, software engineering by Terry Little, concept and specifications by Ken Romaine)
Things Turn Sour:
One day in 1981, Bud pulls into the parking lot and there’s a beat up truck in his parking spot
He strolls in trying to find to kick out to get his spot back and Frank Furr is in his office
Frank has been appointed Chairmen of the Board for Centurion
Frank slowly usurps control of Centurion from Bud, changing things internally little by little
Forcing employees to wear specific uniforms
Preventing Bud from having direct input in day-to-day operations
Bud feels Centurion is being pulled away from him
Bud finally manages to talk directly with Perot and confronts him
The conversation goes how closed door conversations go
Perot ultimately declares he wants to be rid of the Centurion dealer network
Centurion dealers sell Centurion systems for approximately a 50% markup
That means its money EDS aint getting
It’s bad business and Perot wants the dealer network gone
Bud and Perot fight about the dealers for a long time
Bud hangs in with Centurion through all of 1982, trying to save the dealers
But also trying to save the millions of dollars he will lose if he quits early
1983 ~ 1984:
In 1984 EDS-Cent. software team moves to Glenview & Arapahoe, Richardson, TX
8-Port Mux board developed by David Williams
Betrayals and Bad Blood:
This is the start of a sequence of unfortunate events and decisions that led to Centurion's bankruptcy
Bud and Ross met on a weekly basis and the meetings get worse and worse
In the meantime, Frank Furr is undermining Bud and offloading dealers
Many dealers got screwed by EDS but still felt loyalty to Bud, this is important later
Bud, distancing himself from EDS/Centurion creates a new company called ZTron
ZTron is located at Bethany Drive, Allen, Texas
ZTron doesn’t have any products or anything to sell yet
Bud is envisioning the next system he can build and how to leverage the dealers screwed by EDS
Finally, Bud quit in a fit of anger and that really pissed Ross Perot off
Bud says Perot looked at him and said “You leaving is like stabbing me in the heart with a dagger.”
That might be overdramatic, but Perot is a force to be reckoned with, and you don’t cross Perot
It is likely that Perot felt that Bud betrayed him after Perot invested so much in Centurion
Bud now focuses full time on ZTron and developing the CPU7 computer
Perot immediately sues Bud for violating the no-compete clause
Bud is sued for all sorts of stuff, including counterfeiting EDS technology
However, ZTron is only working with Centurion/EDS dealers to provide support which isn’t a violation
That means that ZTron is more like a vendor of EDS and therefore can’t be competing
Bud wins the suit
Around this time, Jim McGee quits Centurion/EDS, but carries a disk pack filled with OS and Application source code
Jim sells this pack to Bud at ZTron, who starts reverse engineering
The goal of reverse engineering was to fix problems that plagued the OS
For example, the OS was updated to use 512 byte sectors instead of 400 byte sectors
They also fixed buffering issues with the OS
On top of that, they used the source code to design the CPU7 to be fully backwards compatible with all previous operating systems and application packages
ZTron is getting closer to a working system
EDS, still unaware that source code is missing, is fed up with both Centurion and the remaining dealer network
Perot is ready to be done with Centurion altogether, and charges Jack (???) at EDS to facilitate a sale of Centurion assets to Bud
Bud obviously can’t afford it, so they strike an agreement to pay off the assets as Bud sells systems and gets money (a pay as you go type thing)
Bud buys back Centurion and in less than six months ZTron/Centurion systems are being produced and sold
These feature the all new AM2903-based CPU7
CPU7 was a Multibus-1 based system
Multibus 1 allowed the use of third party developed cards including
SCSI-I disk controller from InterPhase
Buffered intelligent MUX card
Dual AMD 2903 based CPU
4M of Memory
Off the shelf controllers and backplane
Switching Power supply
Counterfeiting:
The first counterfeit system is seen in the Tulsa, OK office and reported to EDS management around 1984
The first counterfeit circuit boards showed up in the EDS-Centurion repair depot
Counterfeit PCBs came from the Ft. Worth dealer for a Dallas area customer system
EDS starts looking into the counterfeiting problems
As best as we can tell, this is how the counterfeit machines came to be (this may be hilariously incorrect or pinpoint perfect, we really have no way of knowing for sure)
Terry Hall had received permission from Frank Furr to build CPU4 PCBs separate of the main Centurion lineup for testing
Terry was good friends with George Weatherford, who produced the PCB blanks
Terry was also a good friend with Dub McCabe who was a dealer up in Oklahoma
It’s possible that Dub asked Terry for some boards under the table
Terry asked George to do him a solid and produce some extra boards for a little kickback
George gives the boards to Terry, Terry gives them to Dub
Dub then hand solders the boards up, throws them in a cheap, generic cabinet with a CDC acquired Hawk and sells directly to customers, eliminating EDS and Centurion headquarters altogether
Either way, counterfeit systems were out there and once enough proof was found, Ross Perot and EDS rained down hellfire
Centurion had to remove all counterfeit cards and replace with genuine cards
All counterfeit cards were taken by EDS and presumed to have been destroyed
1985:
Note: There is some heavy speculation here based on what I have heard from multiple people, what is written may be true, false or somewhere in-between
I believe it was at this point a few things happened that really pissed Perot off
Bud left, betraying Perot and the work they had put into Centurion together
Bud defeated Perot in court regarding the no-compete clause
Bud bought back Centurion and in less than 6 months had a competing system on the market that was fully compatible
Which is ludicrously fast, too fast to be possible under normal conditions
Perot and EDS likely surmised that Bud somehow got ahold of proprietary information before Centurion was sold
The counterfeiting scandal happens at the same time
This is quite possibly totally coincidental timing with Bud leaving, but either way, it doesn’t look good
Perot was pissed and wanting to burn Bud Smith and ZTron to the ground
War was waged with incessant legal battles over everything under the sun
EDS lawyers went to absolute town on Bud
As Bud tells it, this was intended to bleed Bud dry of time and money until ZTron went bust
During this time, Centurion found a group of Doctors out of Tulsa that put up $1 million ($2.86 million in Oct 2023) to help get some machines going
This was also a tax thing, so the Doctors weren’t doing it out of the goodness of their heart
1986:
EDS found a way to withdraw the $1 million for missed payments on the Centurion sale
This was the final nail in the coffin, and forced ZTron/Centurion into bankruptcy
ZTron had a whole line of computers and products planned, but in the end only sold around 100 CPU7 machines
The now bankrupt ZTron/Centurion was sold to Buddy Cruze of Cruze Computers
Centurion Dealers Computer Corporation (CDCC) was formed as a subsidiary of Cruze Computer Systems
Cruze Computers still exists today and currently holds the Centurion IP
Cruze developed the CPU9
The CPU8 was never used as a “label” for marketing reasons
The CPU9 was simple a cleaning up and streamlining the microcode of the CPU7, and represented a 30 to 40 percent increase in speed over the CPU7
The CPU7 was designed by an engineering firm in Houston using tools that optimize completing the project expeditiously and not for product performance
The only real difference in the CPU7 and CPU9 electrically was the bus interface and how memory was accessed
The OS saw major changes due to a change from 400 byte sectors to 512 byte sectors
A reverse compiler for the CPU7 microcode was developed by David Williams
1987:
Centurion Dealers Computer Corporation (CDCC) was moved to Knoxville Tn.
1988:
CDCC was moved from Knoxville to the Industrial Park near Maryville Tn.
Somewhere in here Dr. Jim Lemmee joined CDCC from the Indianapolis Dealership.
1991:
CPU 10 was developed.
The CPU10 was a 16 bit bit-slice CPU
Simple instruction prefetching
Simple data caching.
Upward Compatible with the CPU7 and CPU8
Some Instruction set enhancement
1992:
Centurion ported to the X86 environment including 8X287 integer emulation
All drivers for new PC and Multibus interfaces implemented Jim Lemmee
All operating system modules ported to X86 Jim Lemmee
Integer operations w/wo 80287 implemented by David Williams
All CPL, JCL, Supported applications (GL, AP, AR, etc) converted to X86 Jim Lemmee and David Williams
Configurations were:
Single PC as Single user
PC as multiple users, using 4 port smart multiplexers
Multiple users using a network of PCs
Multi-bus 1 using the 80286 w/wo the 80287
The Centurion CPU6 hardware side of things was completely retired
Many enhancements to CPL to give it more C functionality
A version of this port is still in use today with two customers of Cruze Computers
