TOPS-20

TOPS-20
Character Information
Common Names	TOPS-20
Other Names	TENEX, Twenex
Human Name(s)	Anthea Bobrow
Faction	Formerly of the DEC Military
Lineage	Derived in part from BTSS, Multics
Rival(s)	TOPS-10, OpenVMS
Appearance
Height	Mid 5'-range
Hair Color	Light lavender
Eye Color	Lavender
Design
First Appearance	2008
Technical Information
System Personified	Tenex, later renamed TOPS-20
Developer(s)	BBN Technologies (1969-1973), Digital Equipment Corporation (1973-late 1980's)
Debut	1969
Latest release	late 1980's

Technical details

TOPS-20's story begins in 1969 at Cambridge-based technology company, Bolt, Beranek and Newman. BBN had recently purchased several PDP-10 computers and needed an operating system; TOPS-10 was considered, however it lacked the special paging features BBN needed. So they built their own operating system, which incorporated a virtual memory system (allowing every program running on the system to access the PDP-10's 262kwords memory) and user-friendly features pioneered by the Berkeley Timesharing System (BTSS) and Multics (in fact, ex-Multics developers worked on the project). This new OS was named TENEX.

In 1973 DEC bought TENEX and renamed it TOPS-20. It was ported to the KI-10 (later, the DECSYSTEM-20) and certain TOPS-10 features were incorporated into its design. TOPS-20 became very popular among hackers and gained a devoted following similar to ITS or Unix.

However, in the 1980s DEC scrapped all of their non-VAX/VMS computer lines - the DECSYSTEM-20 and TOPS-20 included. DEC attempted to convince TOPS-20 partisans to move to VMS, but the majority opted to switch to Unix.

Character details

Note: TENEX is the old name of TOPS-20 but is used more so she will mainly be referred to as Tenex-tan in this article.

Tenex-tan is represented as a young woman with long, wavy lavender hair, similarly-colored eyes. She typically dresses femininely and is fond of frilly dresses and hair decorations. For the most part, her personality is sweet and kind with a sense of child-like innocence, but was also somewhat naive (some would even say gullible) and found herself very out of place in the DEC Faction and its military-style setting. Her training at DEC made her somewhat more cynical world-wise, though she still retains the majority of her naiveté to this day.

A natural people-person, she possesses a slight clairvoyance and telepathy inherited from BTSS-tan - but she has control over her powers, something that her ancestor lacked. She greatly admires Multics-tan and would have been trained by her in sorcery and matters of style and etiquette.

Family and Relationships

Tenex-tan has no official relatives. However, there is evidence of of a strong conceptual relationship between her and BTSS-tan, and a similar link to Multics.

Like the rest of the PDP-10-based OS-tans, Tenex-tan views PDP-10-tan as a mentor and confidant. After she was recruited into the DEC Military, Tenex-tan took a strong liking to TOPS-10-tan and came to view her as something of a big-sister figure. In spite of their professional status as "rivals", they get along for the most part.

Tenex-tan's biggest rivals are VMS and VAX-tan, although her disdain for them has softened in recent years.

History and Background

Early Life

Created by BBN, Tenex-tan was born sometime in the late 1960s and debuted in 1969. Aside from her role in managing the early ARPANET network, little is known of her early life or exact role at BBN.

In 1973, Tenex-tan was recruited into the DEC Faction. The move, and subsequent intense training she underwent was a major upheaval in her life; during this time of uncertainty she sought TOPS-10-tan's guidance and support. TOPS-10-tan was somewhat begrudging about taking the younger -tan under her wing, but in time they bonded in a mutually-respectful friendship. Tenex-tan debuted as a DEC-tan in the year 1976, under the moniker of "TOPS-20".

She quickly grew to popularity, her personable nature, intelligence and sorcery skills gaining her a devoted following within the hacker community and a place among the pantheon of great hacker systems. But her moment in the sun was brief. By the 1980s, DEC management had begun retiring various PDP-11 and PDP-10 OS-tans in order to divert more resources toward the VAX family, and Tenex-tan was one of the OS-tans laid off. Her followers were commanded to adopt VMS-tan as their new leader, however the majority of them considered VMS an enemy and they instead defected to Unix.

Although PDP-10 and TOPS-10-tan viewed their replacement as a sad-but-inevitable fact of life, Tenex-tan took it as a personal affront. She left DEC greatly embittered about the experience and carrying a decades-long grudge against VMS and VAX.

Modern Day

Today, Tenex-tan is employed as a hobbyist system. She is moderately-successful, with a small-yet-loyal userbase who support her to this day. She has - at least in part - reconciled with VMS-tan, and although she is still hurt over what happened she realizes some feuds are best left in the past.