TOPS-20

TOPS-20-tan
Character Information
Common Names	Tenex-tan
Other Names	TOPS-20, TWENEX
Appearance
Design
Creator	Bella
First Appearance	Nov 2008
Technical Information
System Personified	Tenex/TOPS-20
Developer(s)	BBN Technologies (1969-1973), Digital Equipment Corporation (1973-late 1980's)
Debut	1969
Latest release	late 1980's

Technical details

Tenex was created in 1969 by a Boston company, BBN Technologies. In 1973 DEC bought out Tenex and renamed in TOPS-20. It was sold by DEC until the 1980s, when they phased it out; but it still continues to have a cult hobbyist following. Tenex's main influences include Berkeley Timesharing System and Multics (in fact, Multics programmers helped advise in the construction of Tenex-- and suggested the developers make it less complex). After it was bought by DEC, TOPS-10 contributed to its design. Tenex was considered to be very user friendly and to have an intuitive CLI; users need only type a portion of their command, hit the esc key, and have either the command executed or a list of possible choices presented. Tenex was abandoned by DEC in the 1980's in favor of VMS and the VAX machines.

Character details

Tenex-tan is represented as a purple-haired woman with long wavy hair, bright blue eyes and a red frilly gown with matching hair decorations. She is sweet and kindly but a bit naive and was very out of place in the DEC Faction and its military-style setting. She is a natural people-person and is slightly clairvoyant which she inherited from BTSS-tan but has the control over her powers that BTSS-tan lacked. She also greatly admired Multics-tan and would have been trained by her in matters of manners and etiquette.

OSC Notes

After being recruited into the DEC Faction, Tenex-tan would have drifted toward TOPS-10-tan and come to look at her like a mother or sister figure. While quite successful, she never would have been the greatest fighter, choosing to avoid conflicts when possible. She was discharged from the DEC Faction after numerous political and social conflicts with VMS-tan and her followers. She also lacked the ability to carry on their time-honored traditions and created some friction between her and a good number of her family members.

After getting discharged from the DEC military, Tenex-tan's troops were left without a commanding officer. Since DEC abandoned TOPS-20/Tenex in favor of VMS, Tenex-tan's troops were ordered to join VMS-tan's ranks but they refused, instead defecting to Unix or one of Unix's daughters.