MITS Altair 8800
| MITS Altair 8800-tan | |
| |
| Character Information | |
|---|---|
| Common Names | Altair-tan |
| Other Names | n/a |
| Appearance | |
| Design | |
| Creator | Aurora Borealis |
| First Appearance | Dec 2007 |
| Technical Information | |
| System Personified | Altair BASIC (OS), MITS Altair 8800 (hardware) |
| Developer(s) | Microsoft (Altair BASIC), MITS (Altair 8800 hardware) |
| Debut | Jan 1975 |
| Latest release | ? |
Description
The MITS Altair 8800 was released in January 1975 and is the first truly successful personal computer, in the form of a blue + grey box with red lights that blink when the switches are operated to input data. And 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.
MITS Altair 8800-tan has long white hair in a ponytail, dark red eyes, wears a blue + grey helmet (with the same color scheme as the Altair machine) with a fake rocket attached that also doubles as a hair tie and a matching blue + grey dress encrusted with red + silver gems.
Her hobbies include model rockets and math (MITS's founders made model rockets and calculators before entering the computer business) and she is very intelligent and a fast runner (The 8800 has a processor speed of 2 MHz, fast for its time) but has self-destructive behavior, is frail and prone to disaster.
OSC Notes
In her youth, she was bitter rivals with her IMSAI 8080-tan and wanted to knock her out of the competition despite being at a disadvantage. She was so focused on that task instead of improving herself to be up to par with IMSAI 8080-tan that she caused her own demise and from the market she created. 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.
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 Vintage-tans for as long as she could, thinking she would be giving up if she did- until she was confronted with a life-or-death situation and she joined the Vintage-tans as a life-saving decision.
Despite being a distant relative as well as the benefactor to the Microsoft-IBM family during the 1980's, she was unknown to all of them except for Xenix-tan and even then Xenix-tan was by company orders not allowed to speak of her. But when Altair-tan joined the Vintage-tans, she met Windows 1.0-tan and 2.0-tan (who themselves were forgotten, near the dawn of the OS Wars) and they quickly became friends with her and Altair-tan happily lives among the Vintage-tans.