More IBM-tans

[Bella]

Hooray, more Cray-tans! Imma add these guys to my to-draw list too~

Do you suppose LINOS-tan is face-blind? It's the first thing that struck me when you said she has trouble remembering her users.

When you said CrTSS-tan is "Descended from IAS physicists", do you mean the IAS machine family?

...

As promised, I drew some of those ancient OS-tan designs:



L-to-R: FUJIC-tan, FLAC-tan, TIFRAC-tan and CSIRAC-tan (who was designed years ago, but never got a finished drawn depiction).

A couple of notes: FLAC-tan is supposed to be rather tanned and her hair somewhat sun-lightened. I figure she'd spend a lot of time outside, and she's a Floridian, so it just seemed to work. There's a bit of debate whether she's enlisted in the Air Force or not. If she was, she'd have been an Airman First Class.

I don't think I made TIFRAC-tan as well-dressed-looking as I'd have liked to. But this was a quick sketch and I didn't feel like researching Indian formalwear.

CSIRAC, for those who have forgotten, is the first Australian computer. I imagine CSIRAC-tan as being involved in the sciences, but she also has a talent for music - in 1955, CSIRAC was the first computer to play music. I think she'd still be alive today (one of a few surviving first-gen computers) and probably in contact with DTSS (since they both speak BASIC-like languages) and PDP-1-tan (shared interest in music and computer history).

[Aurora Borealis]

They all look great! I imagined TIFRAC-tan dressing very elaborately, especially with a lot of beads, but I like your design too. When I get to drawing her, I'll base her off your rendition.

[Nichi]

Of the 4, I like FUJIC the best ^_^

[Bella]

They all look great! I imagined TIFRAC-tan dressing very elaborately, especially with a lot of beads, but I like your design too. When I get to drawing her, I'll base her off your rendition.

Thanks Aurora! I wanted to draw her outfit as you described it,  but I was feeling too impatient to draw all that fine beadwork. ^^;

Of the 4, I like FUJIC the best ^_^

Interesting. I can't really say I have a favorite of the group, tbh. Though FLAC-tan and I share a homestate, so that makes her kind of special to me. ^^

[stewartsage]

No wonder why Cray-1-tan was a emotionally-cold jerkass for quite some time; if LTSS-tan's hatred of her was mutual, then I think Cray-1-tan would have been such out of necessity, and could finally be a lot nicer after her rival(s) died. I'd also like to envision Cray-1-tan seeing CrTSS-tan as an adoptive daughter; or maybe they were colleagues, but either way, at least she didn't push CrTSS-tan too far (unlike she did with Cray-2).

That's pretty much how I imagined Cray-1's relationship with her, as sort of adoptive mother-daughter.  I can't really explain why she was easier on CTSS rather then Cray-2.  Possibly because she was an outsider/OS instead of a direct descendant?

[Bella]

Some more computers/OSes that may be worth -tanning:

The OS? VPS/VM
The -tan? Don't let the name fool you - VPS-tan isn't a relative to VM/CMS-tan, she's just her rival. MUSIC/SP-tan's Bostonian sister and university-system-tan.

The OS? EMAS
The -tan? Grumpy Scottish mainframe-tan, united with OpenVME by a shared company, computer and disdain for Unix. Likely asserts superiority over Multics-tan.

The computer? HP 2100 Minicomputer
The -tan? The first HP-tan. Possibly a conceptual descendant of PDP-8-tan and a conceptual ancestor of the Tandem NonStop line.

The OS+Computer? Tandem NonStop
The -tan? Psychically-linked twins who have the ability to act in tandem even if separated by distance. They often fight together - if one becomes injured, the other just keeps working. Despite their small stature, they can hold their own in fights against the largest mainframe-tans.

[Aurora Borealis]

@Stew: That's right; Cray-1-tan was much stricter towards Cray-2-tan because she was her successor.

@Bella:

VPS/VM: I envision her having telepathic abilities and create pockets of manipulated time and space for the purpose of users working with her as a reference to each user running under a separate VM, and use her telepathic abilities to send information to all the people she is currently working with. Referencing the 'shared nucleus', she would have a large magical brooch on the collar of her dress. She would have some influences from DOS/360-tan and MVS-tan, and also developed the ability to use Unix spells as Unix utilities got ported over to VPS/VM. How she learned those spells despite not being a Unix system is unknown, but maybe she was so adaptable that she figured it out somehow.

She would be good at working with several people at once, even more than VM/CMS-tan can, but was strict with certain rules, which would lead to her being phased out in favor of Unix's daughters.

EMAS: I remember reading the article for this system as it was listed in the original Annex Project. I don't have any specifics about her appearance, but I'd imagine she would dress very fancifully, rivaling Multics, and have a superiority complex in general when she was in her prime. Like OpenVME-tan, she may have had experiments done on her too as EMAS has been reimplemented and backported to different systems. She died in 1992, and might possibly have been brought back in recent years, but if not, her ghost can easily be channeled through emulation.

HP 2100: Not sure what else to say, but she sounds very influential, and assuming she also represents the Czech and Polish HP 2100 series clones, she would have been very powerful, having operated nuclear power plants! Appearance-wise, she would have blonde hair and wear business clothing in orange, tan and black, and have blue eyes (blue text on terminal).

Tandem Nonstop: I think it'd be cool if they also had shape-shifting abilities, referencing the excellent scaling-up abilities of the system, or create many psychically-linked familiars, all created in and work in pairs, to assist them in work or battle. They would have a strong sense of loyalty and justice, as the Tandem OS is called 'Guardian' as a reference to protecting data. I see them as being either Magic Knights, Magical Girl Warriors, or Kung Fu Wizards who are also Pintsize Powerhouses!

[Bella]

This sounds really good Aurora! All these ideas have been dually noted. : D

i only have a couple of things to add - physically, I imagine VPS/VM-tan would look strikingly similar to MUSIC/SP-tan, though probably with longer and darker hair (OS/360 and DOS/360-tan influence). I think EMAS-tan would be quite tall and imposing, probably with reddish-blonde hair like OpenVME-tan.

I actually like the magical girl idea for the Nonstop-tans. ^^

[NejinOniwa]

dually noted

What, you wrote them down twice?

HURRDURR

[Bella]

dually noted

What, you wrote them down twice?

HURRDURR

Such wit, Nejin!  : p

Speaking of which ... it's been awhile since i've seen you in this thread ...... it's been awhile since we've heard from Ruka and WITCH and the gang ... how are things going on the -tan front for you, Nej? (If they're going at all.)

[NejinOniwa]

Slowly. Bunch of projects gives the one with least inspiration atm the least priority, and I'm afraid that's MR@S (and derivatives) right now. I'm just trying to get into a rhythm where I'm actually doing SOMETHING rather than just bumming around. I'll try to get back to it eventually.

[Bella]

I figured it'd been put on pretty low priority between all your other writing projects  - it's good to know you still want to work on it.

[Aurora Borealis]

At this point, it isn't accurate to call this thread "More IBM-tans" anymore, isn't it?


I finally got to drawing ZX81-tan, together with her younger sisters. In her original concept, she had short black hair, but I decided to go with short wavy almost platinum blonde. That's a ruler she's holding. She taught many many programmers and is important in sparking the creation of the British computer market (though that claim would more accurately go to ZX80-tan, but I have no character concept of her. The ZX80 is a very primitive and underpowered machine like the ZX81, but more so!). One of the most important lessons her students learned is that programming can be painful!

(EDIT: Oops. I missed some shading on some areas. >.< )

[Bella]

Ooh, it's been awhile since we've seen these ladies! QL and Spectrum-tan look great, and I love ZX81-tan's outfit but her body proportions are scaring me a little bit. (i think her trunk and face are too long, and legs too short.)

Somehow I can see ZX81-tan and TRSDOS-tan being friends. ^^

Don't worry about derailment, this thread stopped being about IBM-tans strictly after like, the fifth post. (Seriously, go back and look, Burroughs- and CDC-tans were thrown into the fray in the first page.)

[Aurora Borealis]

I've been doing some reading up on the CDC and Cray computers, and found some information regarding the Crays' and CDCs' rivalry, and a rivalry CDC had with IBM:

The first supercomputer was the CDC 6600, making the OS-tans for that system the fastest and most powerful by association (is there a 6600-tan?). Seymour Cray contributed to the 6600 and was one of the most influential CDC employees, so when he left in 1972, the CDC-tans did not take his departure well.

IBM was working on a computer faster than the 6600, and it was with the release of the 6600 that CDC was seen as a significant competitor. The CDC 6600 OS-tans' success was sabotaged by the IBM-tans (link), who spread FUD about the 6600- IBM announced a nonexistant computer that was to be more powerful, and their lie worked. Avenging the territory and wealth the CDCs lost, they waged a war against the IBM-tans, corresponding to an anti-trust lawsuit against IBM, which CDC won.

The 6600-tans had some successors, the 7600 and 8600. Their successor was STAR-100, which used new architecture and a vector processor with the goal of being more efficient and was to be the fastest computer, but actual performance was much worse than expected, and was a failure.

Cray left CDC in 1972, and the STAR-100 debuted in 1974. Cray-1 debuted in 1976. STAR-100's failure, and Cray-1's vastly better performance cost CDC's dominant status from the supercomputer industry, a status which Cray Research seized, leading to the resentment the CDCs had against the Crays, they saw Cray-1's existence, let alone her success as betrayal... Well, except for SCOPE, who got no respect from her colleagues despite her leadership and decided to be friends with Cray-1 instead.