OS-tan Annex Project Revival

[NejinOniwa]

She is a non-member. In the early days of the MFG (during the 50's) she was invited, but after infiltrating one of their meetings she decided against; she hasn't exactly regretted that decision after she was revived, seeing what became of the mainframes.

And while Colossus is the oldest living OS-tan, the title of oldest living computer technically belongs to another Brit...

WITCH is still entirely intact, and the one that is being polished up at the Computer Museum is the same one piece of equipment that stayed up over the holodays and newyearsmas happily trudging through her data all alone in Harwell's basement during the 50's. Colossus is a rebuild (suffered stages 1 through 3 in the death cycle, thus needed to be revived from the dead) while WITCH was put in storage after she was dismantled (suffered only stage 1 of the death cycle, thus simply needed to be "restarted", sort of) and later moved to the Museum for reactivation.
More info on WITCH is to be expected next week, once the next chapter (where she will make her debut) is completed. Stay tuned~ -w-

[Aurora Borealis]

I thought that EXEC/UNIVAC-sama was the oldest, being born in 1951, or at least is the OS-tan who has been alive the longest since she never died. When was Colossus brought back from the dead?

Makes sense Colossus left the Guild, because although they're still powerful, their glory days are way behind them, and they've lost a lot of their prestige. She'd be embarrassed to be around them in the present day!

[NejinOniwa]

I wasn't aware EXEC was still alive - pretty much all UNIVAC systems are long since discontinued and outdated, and I doubt anything running either of the EXEC versions is still alive. Proofcheck demanded!

Colossus was revived during 2006, and her Rebirthday party was held in November '07. And like I said, I don't think Colossus ever joined in the first place - the early mainframes that she were around to see weren't anywhere close to her power or strength, and she had sort of started losing interest in life at that point anyway.

[Aurora Borealis]

Hmmm... Okay.

Well, in the original Annex Project, EXEC was listed as being alive, and I guess I didn't question it. It was assumed she's represent the whole UNIVAC and EXEC lines. She does have a successor, OS 2200, which is still currently-maintained.

Bwahahaha! It's not like those other mainframes were instrumental in the outcome of a World War! Colossus-sama is in a class of her own!

[Chocofreak13]

*__* this is mystifying....

[stewartsage]

EXEC is still alive.  Much like how some businesses still use DOS because they have programs written for it, some still use EXEC to run heritage programs on their Unisys mainframes.

[NejinOniwa]

Thanks for clarifying that.

[Bella]

Annnnnnnnd there goes Boston's pseudoclaim to having the earliest "modern" computers. >> << >>;;;

Interesting stuff Nej, varai interestuhn. :3

[Chocofreak13]

and the world and our perceptions change. -w- once again, interesting.

[Bella]

Not really. I still consider Boston the "Cradle of Civilisations" for the sheer number of computers and companies that directly influenced modern machines -
-Harvard Mk. I influenced modern microprocessor design
-Whirlwind gave us the minicomputer
-SAGE prototyped the internet and streaming video
-CTSS and Multics are the ancestor of most modern OSes
-The MIT hacker culture
And if you look farther north, New Hampshire is home to DTSS and BASIC, one of the most widely-used languages and the software used in many micros

So while "advanced civilisation" existed before Boston's computer culture, it might not have any readily traceable descendants in the modern world. Compare ancient Rome, which modeled a lot of the workings of western civilisation and Egypt, an earlier but equally (or, arguably more) advanced society whose influence isn't as apparent in western society.

[NejinOniwa]

Then again, Egypt influenced Rome a fair bit and was so still during its golden ages... Remember Caesar and his Cleopatra. -w-

[Chocofreak13]

if we're going to use that analogy, use Mesopotamia. completely extinct, yet was extremely advanced for its time. (either that or the mayans, but they're not extinct, just endangered. :3)

anyway, i think you're right. it's like how human life is thought to have originated in africa, but the earliest civilizations were in india and the middle east.

[Bella]

Since the announcement got buried over at RPT, just thought I'd let it be known again that we have a new Mac-tan:



Wild Mass Guessing tiem for her personality. Aurora? Chozo? Anything you'd like to speculate?

I'll throw my hat into the ring here: I'm guessing that she's a Queen Bee alpha-female type (the lion is the king of the jungle), powerful (or at least cocky) enough to challenge the de-facto OSX leader Tiger-tan. She displays the intelligence and smugness of her big sister, Snow/Leopard, but lacks her genius and pioneering spirit (Leopard was the first Mac OS to be certified as a true Unix, feature Time Machine), preferring using social and political tactics to traveling the temporal dimension.

A note on that last part, however - I imagine the Time Machine has been designed to only work with Snow/Leopard's bioelectrical fingerprint, but Lion would be able to use it too. Somehow. (Mac OSX Lion uses the Time Machine utility). I also theorize that she would harbour some pseudo-scientific and/or -magical skills of her own, involving spontaneous travel through spatial dimensions (aka, teleporation).

She's friendly toward the Unixes but not quite as sycophantic toward them as Leopard. Her dearest companion is iPhone-tan (Lion incorporates iOS features).

[Aurora Borealis]

Sounds good!

Lion-tan, however isn't the only contender to challenge Tiger-tan's leadership- don't forget OSX-tan herself! So that would make a three-way rivalry between them! (Poor Rhapsody-tan... she never wanted her daughters to fight like that!)

Would she give any thought to the Classic-tans though? In-story, Leopard-tan didn't at first (was misguided- wanting them to retire because she thought it'd be a nice thing to do), but learned that nobody in the family should be left behind. Lion dropped all support for Power PC apps, including the Carbonized Classic apps that could still run with Leopard and Snow Leopard.

[NejinOniwa]

She'd give little thought to the "old generation", as long as they keep in line...

I think that design needs some work though, and we might as well get some of our own work in there for props. More from me is on the way, but I need sleep tonight >_>