MITS Altair 8800

MITS Altair 8800-tan
Character Information
Common Names	MITS Altair 8800-tan
Other Names	Altair
Faction	Binteeji Renmei
Lineage	independent
Rival(s)	IMSAI 8080, Apple II, TRS-80 (former rivalries)
Appearance
Height	137 cm (4'6")
Hair Color	silver or white
Eye Color	dark red
Design
First Appearance	Dec 2007
Technical Information
System Personified	MITS Altair series and Altair BASIC
Developer(s)	MITS (hardware), Microsoft (OS)
Debut	Jan 1975
Latest release	unknown (circa late 1970's)

Technical details

The MITS Altair 8800 was released in January 1975 and is the first commercially successful personal computer despite its difficulty to use. Data had to be input one bit at a time through switches on the front panel, and the output was displayed as a pattern of blinking lights. The Altair has no ROM, and has no storage by default. Like most personal computers of the 1970's, it came in kit form or fully assembled. One of the OSes it can run is Altair BASIC, the first product made by Microsoft.

Character details

General

MITS Altair 8800-tan has long white hair in a ponytail, with dark red eyes, and wears a vaguely steampunk-style dress with a matching helmet and boots. She wears a blue helmet with grey trim; on her helmet is a fake rocket attached that doubles as a hair tie. She wears a gown in the same shade of blue, with white trim at the hem, and a white bow on the collar; around the collar are red pearls with white stitching below them modeled after the 8800's front panel. On her dress she wears a large metallic waistband with rivets on it.

Her hobbies include model rockets and math (MITS's founders made model rockets and calculators before entering the computer business). She is intelligent, particularly good at engineering, but is prone to disaster and not good at planning. Often she is shy and introverted, but when she is excited, she talks in a grandiose, or over-the-top manner, sometimes she has bursts of grandiosity; this refers to the immense hype the Altair had when it was announced by MITS.

She is the oldest Microsoft-affiliated OS or computer-tan, and was for years the benefactress to the early Microsoft-IBM Family.

Family and relationships

Windows 1.0 and 2.0

She is good friends with 1.0-tan and 2.0-tan, whom she met for the first time when she joined the Binteeji Renmei. They quickly bonded over being exiled members of the former Microsoft-IBM Family and their admiration of the late Xenix-tan, whose connections to the three of them make the first Windows-tans long-lost family to Altair-tan. 1.0-tan's unconditional friendliness helped Altair-tan feel welcome to the faction right away, and she is happy to have helped 2.0-tan come out of her shell some more.

Xenix

She was friends with Xenix-tan, and contributed to the fledgeling MS-IBM family. After ties were forcibly severed by the faction's higher-ups, and Xenix-tan no longer allowed to speak of her, she wrote of Altair-tan's memoirs, and the time she spent together with her so she doesn't end up forgotten.

IMSAI 8080

IMSAI 8080-tan was her arch-nemesis in the 1970's; as this was during the revolution, she felt threatened by this more powerful, resilient computer-tan adopting her architecture,feared losing her followers, and fought back which ever way she could. Decades later, they reconciled, long after dropping out of the competition and going their own ways. The passage of time changed them both; IMSAI-tan had put the rivalry behind her years ago after finding a new purpose in life, and Altair-tan was willing to do the same.

Apple I

Although extremely competitive towards others; she wasn't competitive towards Apple I-tan. At first it was because Apple I-tan was a pacifist and not seen as a threat but they both soon became good friends.

DTSS

She admired DTSS-tan, the pioneer of the BASIC programming language, and was the first microcomputer-tan to adopt it.

History and background

In her youth, and IMSAI 8080-tan were bitter rivals. IMSAI-tan had several advantages over her, and Altair-tan wanted to get rid of her by any means; she focused on this more instead of training herself to be up to par competitor, she caused her own demise from the very market she created.

She was able to find another purpose with her life, because of her ties to Microsoft, Xenix-tan contacted Altair-tan to propose an alliance that would become the Microsoft-IBM Family in 1980. They cared for QDOS-tan together. The next year, QDOS-tan was abandoned, and Altair exiled by executive orders; Xenix was prohibited to speak of Altair-tan to the new members of the MS-IBM Family.

After her exile, she lived in obscurity for over 20 years; her influence was recognized by many, but the only people and computers who cared to know more about her were computer historians.

Altair-tan is still alive but frustrated with herself, regrets what she did in the past and is sad that Apple I-tan, one of the few friends she ever had died long ago. She spent years as a wanderer, putting off living with the Binteeji Renmei for as long as she could, thinking she would be a sign of weakness if she joined them until she was confronted with a life-or-death situation. Now she has no regrets joining them, among the members she met there are long-lost family (Windows 1.0, 2.0 and PC-DOS), and her role model, DTSS-tan.

See also:

• Altair 8800 on Old Computers