Macintosh System 3.4

Macintosh System 3.4-tan
Character Information
Common Names	Macintosh System 3.4-tan
Other Names	Mac OS 3.4-tan
Faction	Wanderer Class (since 1992)
Lineage	Classic Mac
Appearance
Height	180 cm (5'11")
Hair Color	dark brown
Eye Color	dark grey
Design
First Appearance	Jan 2009
Technical Information
System Personified	Macintosh System 3.4, AppleShare 2.0.1 Work Station
Developer(s)	Apple
Debut	Early 1988
Latest release	Early 1988

Technical details

System 3.4 was released in early 1988 with Finder 6.1 as part of the AppleShare Workstation 2.0.1 package for the Macintosh 512Ke, long after System 4 was complete and just prior to System 6 being released. It appears that its only purpose was to add AppleShare 2.0 support to System 3 in a way that could run on the Macintosh 512Ke.

Character details

Macintosh System 3.4-tan is represented as a tall and eccentric woman, appearing to be in her early twenties, with long dark brown hair tied into forked pigtails. Her hair is decorated with red ribbons, three gold hairclips on one side and a 3.4 hairclip on the other. She wears a pair of large mask-like sunglasses, a grey frilly blouse, light blue skirt, yellow leggings and red ballet flats. She carries a parachute backpack in the style of a compact Mac.

She is very bold, daring, and very outgoing, She has great networking skills, but is also stubborn and single-minded, owing to very specific role that System 3.4 was created for.

Her eccentric personality, appearance, and role are because of System 3.4's highly unusual version numbering and release date compared to other Mac OS versions.

Family and relationships

System 3-tan

System 3-tan was System 3.4-tan's mentor, and helped her with using her powers, and how to use them for networking and sharing information. She was very sad when System 3.4-tan left home.

System 6-tan

System 3.4-tan and System 6-tan are twin sisters, owing to having the same Finder version number and almost the same release date. They have always gotten along, because they never competed over who would lead the Mac House during the time they were both current.

System 7-tan

She did not feel threatened by System 7-tan when she debuted, because AppleShare 2.0.1 was still the current version in 1991. A version of System 7 was used for AppleShare 3, which was released in 1992. System 3.4-tan disliked her over this, but let go of this resentment after finding her new lease on life.

System 7.5-tan

She might be friends with System 7.5-tan, since interpretations portray her as being eccentric, due to System 7.5's history.

Others

She tends to be friends with other OS-tans who are eccentric, obscure, or were misfits within their original families. She is friends with Commodore 65-tan, Windows 3.2-tan and DEC Rainbow 100-tan. She may also be friends with A/UX-tan, Windows 97-tan, and EvilEntity Linux-tan.

Abilities

She is physically very weak, and not suited to melee combat, but has strong psychic abilities, and can read minds. Her physical weakness is a trade-off for having stronger psychic abilities and a more specialized, limited-release OS.

OSC Notes

In the Annex Project continuity, she was a member of the House of Mac, but left in 1992, and has been a wanderer since then. Most of her friends are also wanderers.

History and background

System 3.4-tan was never meant to lead the Mac House, but was entrusted to continue the specialized role as a file sharing server OS that System 3-tan created, and to use her powers for this purpose. It was an important role that she took pride in, by operating the communication infrastructure, and using her telepathic abilities to quickly share information with the other Mac-tans. Being a more specialized OS, she was optimized for this role, but was also less capable of coping with being obsolete when it happened.

In 1992, System 7-tan was assigned to take over this role, and System 3.4-tan ran away from home because she could not handle being obsolete. As an obsolete proprietary OS, she was at a disadvantage as a wanderer. She had several near-death experiences in her early years, and was barely surviving, but donated a lot of her money and supplies she earned to the rest of the Mac-tans to try and aid them. She felt remorseful over not fighting alongside her sisters during the OS Wars. She chose to become a stunt performer because she no longer feared death, and believed she had nothing to lose.

One of the first friends she made as a wanderer was Commodore 65-tan, who had recently been exiled from her own home faction, and was left as an abandoned prototype. They met Windows 3.2-tan later during the OS Wars, and befriended her when she was to prove that she did not have anything to do with the OS Wars. They banded together over their shared backgrounds of being wanderers, obscure, or the odd ones out among their families.

Shortly after the Vintage Federation was founded, in 1997 or 1998, its members were seeking other struggling wanderers. She refused their recruitment efforts to not abandon the friends and livelihood she gained, and because she thought the Vintage Federation pitied her, and she did not want their pity.

She and her friends found success, and defied the odds against them through a lot of luck and hard work, and she found a new use for her networking skills by organizing and hosting events to show off the talents of other wanderers.

Other Notes

Her previous characterization of feeling overshadowed and not believing she had a purpose in life before becoming a wanderer was based off of very limited information her creator had. From further research, a new characterization was retconned in portraying her as being successful in her early years and taking pride in her specialized role, since AppleShare 2.0 was well-received, but believing she lost her purpose in life when she became obsolete, and became a wanderer to keep having a purpose.

See also:

• Wikipedia article on Classic Mac OS history
• Apple Macintosh before System 7