OS-tan Theory Revival

[Aurora Borealis]

Makes sense, combined with the contemporary attitude that once an OS-tan is obsolete, she is to be sacrificed or abandoned. As for Multics' ungratefulness, well, it didn't help that BESYS was short-tempered and hard to get along with anyways. However, I think that BESYS would have liked UNIX, but unfortunately died right around the time UNIX was created, possibly shortly after.

BESYS also has the same kind of eyes UNIX has, blue with the Bell logo; a trait from BESYS' side, or part of an old tradition among the Bell Labs-originated OS-tans? 

[Bella]

Makes sense, combined with the contemporary attitude that once an OS-tan is obsolete, she is to be sacrificed or abandoned. As for Multics' ungratefulness, well, it didn't help that BESYS was short-tempered and hard to get along with anyways.

That's also true, BESYS never made much of an attempt to get along with Multics.

Sounds familiar though, doesn't it? The same thing played out between Multics and Unix-tan (parent and child mutually antagonistic toward each other with little motivation to get along, ending with the [near] destruction of the parent).

However, I think that BESYS would have liked UNIX, but unfortunately died right around the time UNIX was created, possibly shortly after.

It's also interesting to note that it's been theorized that CTSS-tan would have probably gotten along with Unix too, and that Unix may've been a very different person had she known her ancestors. :/

BESYS also has the same kind of eyes UNIX has, blue with the Bell logo; a trait from BESYS' side, or part of an old tradition among the Bell Labs-originated OS-tans?

The Bell logos in Unix-tan's eyes were originally supposed to be implants, and I always assumed BESYS-tan's eyes had a similar origin. However, I think we have enough material to construct an alternate theory - that they're actually a magical/biological trait that originated with BESYS and manifested itself in Unix.

Speaking of which, I'm probably going to add "BESYS is related to Multics" to the theories article.

[Aurora Borealis]

@Bella: You're right! There is that theme in Unix's backstory of wanting to avoid the fate Multics suffered, but shows signs of succumbing to it. Does the notion of "You can't fight fate, but I'm going to try anyways!" run in Multics' and Unix's family?

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15 years ago, after Windows' stranglehold on the computer market  (and Apple's own backfiring tactics at the time) nearly destroyed Apple, Microsoft would end up saving Apple?!

I had known about Microsoft investing $150 million in Apple to bail them out, but thought on the anniversary of that event would be a good time to discuss how this would translate into the OS-tan universe.

After the Windows Empire, led by 95-tan's forces conquered and plundered nearly all of the Mac-tan's territory, there was the sudden decision to help rebuild what the Mac-tans had left? Clearly, 95-tan wouldn't have agreed to that, but maybe 3.1 and NT did? I interpret 3.1-tan as having regret fighting in the OS Wars, and NT-tan conquered the Unix and server territory but didn't really fight the Macs.

Part of the deal required the Macs to give up some of their old ways, referencing IE being adopted as the default browser. Now was this a serious attempt to end the blood feud, or could you suspect some conflict of interest, or was the main intent to fight against anti-trust allegations? Rivalries between the Macs and Windows continued, neither clan trusting each other very much for years afterwards, and the negotiations couldn't have gone smoothly (referencing the huge amount of booing when the deal was spoken of at the 1997 Macworld Expo), but their fights would never be as bad as during the OS Wars, and in the present day, the families do meet up to try and talk things out and prevent escalating conflict even though it's not the easiest option.

[Bella]

Re: Unix and Multics: Well, Unix-tan certainly tried to fight her (perceived) fate and seems to have secured a degree of success, at least in modern times - she was able to restore a certain level of peace to her family and is living out a relatively stable "old age", something that neither her grandmother(s) nor mother was able to do. Multics-tan, on the other hand, seemed to have learned nothing from her falling out with BESYS, as evidenced by her treatment of Unix in the early 70s....

Also, one other note, since in my last post I mentioned the relationship that could have existed between CTSS and Unix-tan. Earlier today I found this quote in a 1976 paper by Dennis M. Ritchie:

In most ways UNIX is a very conservative system. Only a handful of its ideas are genuinely new. In fact, a good case can be made that it is in essence a modern implementation of MIT's CTSS system [1]. This claim is intended as a compliment to both UNIX and CTSS. Today, more than fifteen years after CTSS was born, few of the interactive systems we know of are superior to it in ease of use; many are infe- rior in basic design.

I know it's somewhat tangential to the topic at hand, but I find it kind of amazing and beautiful that dmr recognized Unix as a sort of "spiritual successor" to CTSS. Especially given the contrast between CTSS and Unix, the former of which was dead and all but forgotten outside of MIT by the mid-70s, while the latter was really just starting to lay down the foundation for its future takeover of the operating system market.

Re: MS saving Apple: To be honest, I've kind of tried to bury that piece of history deep in the recesses of my mind so I've never really thought about the implications to OS-tan fanon. >> But I think you have it about right - it was probably the event that patched up most of the major conflict between the Macs and Windows-tans, or at least turned their conflict from a more open and violent one into a sort of ... cold war, i guess.

As for WHO helped the Macs rebuild ... I can actually see NT-tan lending a hand to the Macs. As you noted, her enemies were mainly the Unices and she probably wouldn't have viewed the Macs as a threat in the same way 95-tan did. Not to mention the fact that NT-tan seems rather predisposed to a nurturing attitude....

[Aurora Borealis]

Yes, Unix has partly avoided Multics' fate, though she was reluctant to nominate Linux as her heiress, not wanting to risk Linux getting corrupted by the kind of power that corrupted Unix, and Multics a generation back. It is sad, Multics had to learn the lesson of humility the hard way, though Unix did try and assassinate her because GECOS wanted her to.

Good find about that dmr quote!

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Making the issue of the Mac-tans, and the help they got rebuilding their society more complicated was that the Macs also had forged an alliance with the Unixes at that point because of NeXTSTEP-tan... even though NeXTSTEP-tan would later defect from the Unix faction. I think. It was around that time that Apple bought out NeXT. @_@

Would NT-tan have not known that, or if she did, would she have been willing to overlook that, since the Unixes were no longer much of a threat at the time, and there is NT-tan's nurturing personality. Interesting how NT-tan can be kind to others, but show no mercy to others. Yangire? The only of the Apple-tans she would have competed with would have been  System 7-tan, since System 7 was the default OS on the Apple Workgroup Server models released, and A/UX, though a Unix OS, was the secondary OS sometimes used on the Workgroup Servers.

And also complicating things further was the brief stint AIX-tan had as a mercenary to the Apple faction, from 1996 to 1997, since AIX ran on the Apple Network Servers. Her career as a mercenary failed miserably due to the ANS' very poor sales, and she has little to show for it, as few ANS machines survive to this day. The financial losses incurred were another factor that endangered the Apple faction. AIX-tan would prefer not to talk about that due to personal shame.

[Bella]

Yeah, NT-tan is certainly yangire. I didn't know that System 7 ran on a server, or that AIX ported to Apple hardware! Considering how proud AIX-tan is, I'm sure she'd be be ashamed of her failures at Apple...

Anyway, I may attempt to develop TECO-kun further...  I was inspired after reading an anecdote about how TECO was vital for the installation of certain DEC OSes, but never receiving actual support from the company. It makes me think that TECO-kun might be some sort of assistant to the DEC-tans, but never actually a part of their faction...

Secondly, I had a random thought about the nature of Multics-tan and Emacs-kun's relationship ... for a long time it's seemed odd that those two characters would get along, given that Multics and Emacs came from rather different social/corporate environments, but the more I read about Emacs (in particular, the Vi fandom's view of Emacs), the more I began to realize that there was actually a decent in-story reason for those two to like each other. Namely, being eerily alike.

-Both were raised by mainframe-tans (Multics and Emacs developed on mainframes)
-Both originated at MIT
-Both were/are leaders of passionately-devoted, pseudo-religious factions/cults (the Multicians and Church of Emacs/Emacsians)
-Both traveled far and wide and befriended many other computer-tans (Multics sites were located all over the world, Emacs ported to tons of platforms)
-Fans consider their complexity endearing, while detractors brand them elephantine. (Multics and Emacs considered feature-full by advocates and  bloated by critics).
-Both had/have long-standing rivalries with nimbler competitors (Multics v. Unix; Emacs v. Vi).

There are more reasons, but I can't think of them at the moment... when I do I'll post them. x.x

[Aurora Borealis]

System 7 is the Classic Mac OS with the most hardware support and range of hardware (68k Macs, PPC Macs, Mac Clones, could run on Macs as low-end as the Mac Plus), and the only OSX version with a similar range of support and versatility is Tiger (PPC Macs, Intel Macs, 'Hackintoshes', could run on Macs as low-end as most of the G3 iMacs). This leads me to think that System 7-tan has an adventurous side and disregards the family's walled garden as much as Tiger-tan does, though she doesn't appear to be the type that would! Also those two OSes were the Classic and OSX versions supported for the longest time.

Check this out: [link] Even with the rise of Mountain Lion (who I'd still like to think of as being the same character as Lion-tan, but tougher and a better fighter), Snow Leopard is still widely used; paralleling System 6 still being widely used even after System 7 was introduced and Mac OS 9 being widely used after OSX 10.0 - 10.2 were introduced.

I could see TECO as a DEC assistant, being the closest to RSTS-tan and RSX-tan in particular. Being unsupported and presumably unpaid, he'd be a volunteer of some sort.

The relationship between Multics and Emacs is the tale of a sequestered aristocrat and a working-class hacker who can see past their socioeconomic differences and see that they have in common more than they are different. Both of them having enigmatic personalities, being able to understand each other for that reason alone was enough of a challenge!

[stewartsage]

Brief suggestion; perhaps the Windows set up some sort of Marshal-style recovery plan for their former enemies?

[Bella]

Stew's in the theories thread, trap him!!!!

That's really interesting about System 7-tan! I would have never guessed she had such an adventurous side, probably because of her generally-stoic nature. That article was pretty interesting, I had no idea Mountain Lion was so popular already - in regards to Mountain Lion-tan, I'm really not sure if I want to view her as the same character as Lion-tan or not. On one hand, it sort of makes sense from a plot POV to make them the same character, on the other, I really like Esu's Mountain Lion-tan design. >>;;

I like the parallel between SL, System 6 and System 9 though.

TECO-kun is probably begrudgingly unpaid, since he's kind of a grumpy character to begin with. I wonder why he sticks with the DEC-tans even though he's (seemingly) not getting anything out of it...

The relationship between Multics and Emacs is the tale of a sequestered aristocrat and a working-class hacker who can see past their socioeconomic differences and see that they have in common more than they are different. Both of them having enigmatic personalities, being able to understand each other for that reason alone was enough of a challenge!

Your description of them made me smile.

I'd also like to note that both Emacs-kun and Multics-sama are just a bit, narcissistic, I suppose, so it makes sense that they'd seek out a partner who is somewhat similar to themselves.

It's also worth noting that IRL, Multics had a fairly large impact on Emacs ... I believe Multics Emacs was the first to have user extensions written in LISP? I'm not sure, I'd have to check out the Emacs history page again.

[Aurora Borealis]

@Stew: That sounds spot-on!

@Bella: I like Esu's Mountain Lion-tan design too, so I'm also ambivalent on whether they should be the same character.

Wonder if System 7-tan and Tiger-tan would be the types to sneak out of the walled garden together, with Tiger being all hot-blooded about it while System 7 is almost as stoic as she usually is. Hidden depths FTW.

That parallel is pretty good, though Mac OS9's reputation isn't so much about speed and stability (which vary considerably from user to user, it was a love-it-or-hate-it OS), but it did have more usability and some nice features that still haven't gotten ported over to OSX.   And also as a downside in those comparisons, SL and System 6 were both relatively malware prone; Most Macs infected with Flashback ran SL, and quite a few of the Classic malware only affected System 6. I'm drawing a short comic about this.

With TECO being unpaid and grumpy, I'd like to think that the DECs are considerate enough to leave him a plate of cookies just for him as compensation when he's needed.

[Bella]

Yeah, I really don't think we can pull of a two-separate-designs-representing-the-same-character gimmick with Lion-tan/ML-tan like we did with Leopard-tan/SL-tan. Unless you want to propose that Lion-tan stole Leopard's time machine and eneded up doing a bit of intertemporal tinkering herself. Your description of System 7 and Tiger-tan's friendship makes me think that they might have something of a "red oni, blue oni"-type partnership.

I didn't know SL was any more malware prone than any of the other OSXen... also, I'm a bit curious about what these useful-but-unported OS9 features are, since I'm not familiar with OS9 at all. And I can't wait to see this mini-comic! : D

Hahaha, I am totally going to make TECO-kun being paid in food by the DECs a part of his backstory! :p

...

Anyway, I'll post this here since it IS the theory thread...

THEORY: TX-0-tan was purposefully excluded from most accounts of MIT-tan history
So, we retconned portions of Whirlwind-tan's backstory when it was discovered that Whirlwind-tan does not represent both her namesake system and the TX-0/-2 computers. This has left a huge hole in the MIT-tan timeline, since the TX-0/TX-2 was a VERY significant computer and should certainly get an OS-tan.

I theorize a way to preserve the TX-0-shaped holes in the MIT-tan's history, while making it clear that TX-0-tan did, indeed, exist. Basically, TX-0-tan's existence has been ignored in most (surviving) accounts of MIT-tan history.

"But, why?" You ask, head cocked skeptically at this rather elaborate conjecture.

You may recall that Whirlwind-tan, beloved matriarch of the MIT clan, was terribly disfigured (and eventually killed) in the pursuit of creating TX-0-tan (Word of God states that those experimental surgeries were more-or-less 'test runs' for the creation of TX-0). You may also recall that TX-0-tan is, in essence, a clone of Whirlwind, albeit simplified/miniaturized. Surely you can imagine that some of the MIT-tans would view her as a sort of strange usurper to Whirlwind-tan's throne, even though the two were vastly different in personality and purpose.

[Aurora Borealis]

I don't think that SL wasn't inherently more malware-prone, but got infected more because it was still more widely used than Lion. I can't remember all the features off the top of my head, but one of the most missed features from OS9 (and earlier) was the customizable Apple menu. Labels were another widely missed feature, but were brought back with OSX Panther.

Glad you like what I suggested for TECO-kun!

The theory about TX-0 sounds good, and doesn't disrupt too much of what was already established. Isn't TX-0 to Whirlwind what Unix is to Multics? Simplified but influential computer-tans who were practically disowned from their social circles?

[Bella]

Ohh, that actually makes more sense. A customizable Apple menu sounds pretty cool, I didn't know that labels originated with Classic Mac either...

Comparing TX-0 and Whirlwind-tan to Multics and Unix is somewhat erroneous, since Whirlwind-tan and TX-0-tan ran in the same social circle and TX-0-tan didn't directly displace/compete with Whirlwind. Also, I don't imagine that TX-0-tan faced much direct opposition at the time - most of the unease toward her was probably retrospective.

[Aurora Borealis]

@Bella: Labels originated with System 4.2 on color Macs, IIRC.

Another Classic Mac feature not in OSX is the "Print Window" feature, introduced in System 6, where it was called "Print Directory". I thought that was amusing because never before have I seen any other Classic Mac OS version use the term "directory" instead of "folder" or "window". (Alternate character interpretation: Aside from also being a Large Ham type of character, System 6-tan also speaks in a Totally Radical manner, dude.)

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Oh, okay. That's strange that TX-0-tan was accepted at first, but did something or was perceived in a way that in hindsight made her look bad. Maybe she was accepted by the earlier MIT followers, but they turned against her after Whirlwind's death?

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Here's a panel from the first page of the mini comic:

[Bella]

Or maybe Mac System 6-tan was influenced by the Unices in her choice of "directory" over "folder". : p

Snow Leopard-tan looks totally adorable in that panel~ and I actually have more info on TX-0-tan (as well as two recently-discovered MIT computer systems from the early 1960s that we may or may not be able to personify), but since I'm about ready to call it a night (again), I'll save that for tomorrow.