Rainbow 100
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| DEC Rainbow 100 | |
| [[File:|250px]] | |
| Character Information | |
|---|---|
| Common Names | DEC Rainbow 100 |
| Other Names | Rainbow |
| Human Name(s) | Rain Decker |
| Faction | Wanderer Class, formerly of the DEC Military |
| Lineage | DEC, own branch (home computer division) |
| Rival(s) | MS-DOS and PC-DOS (wanted to be their friend yet saw them as rivals at the same time) |
| Appearance | |
| Height | 148 cm (4'10") |
| Hair Color | pink |
| Eye Color | blue |
| Weapon(s) | DEC military sword |
| Design | |
| First Appearance | Spring 2011 |
| Technical Information | |
| System Personified | DEC Rainbow 100 hardware and software |
| Developer(s) | Digital Equipment Corporation |
| Debut | 1982 |
| Latest release | unknown, discontinued mid-80's. |
Technical details
The Rainbow 100 was a series of home computers by DEC, but had multiple uses, with two CPUs and 3 built-in modes. It had a VT-100 mode to interact with DEC's VAX line, a CP/M mode using the Z80 CPU, and an MS-DOS mode using the 8088 CPU. Hardware differences from IBM PC compatibles kept the Rainbow 100 from being fully compatible with them. It was not very successful commercially, but had a part in the creation of the FidoNet system.
Character details
General
Rainbow 100-tan is represented as a preteen or teenage girl with blue eyes, and shoulder-length pink hair decorated with several colorful ribbons. Her hair ribbons are red, orange, yellow and green, her eyes are blue, and she wears a frilly purple dress. Over her dress, she wears the jacket of her DEC cadet uniform out of nostalgia towards the old DEC Military.
Her personality has some differences depending on which mode she is in. She is stoic, focused, and more soldier-like in her VT-100 mode since this was the mode she used the most when serving in the DEC Military. In her other two modes, she is more carefree, but has a conflicting and ambivalent personality.
She was never much of a fighter, and likes to write and draw. Her ambivalence comes from the expectations she had on her to conform to IBM PC standards, and her desire to be herself.
Abilities
Like many of the DEC-tans, Rainbow 100-tan can manipulate an element, and wields swords. She can manipulate light to stun or confuse enemies, or to make herself invisible. However, she does not have as much raw magic power as most of the other DEC-tans, and relies more on her resourcefulness and cleverness to win fights.
Family and relationships
DEC-tans
Rainbow 100-tan often felt out of place in the DEC Military, but got along well with TOPS-10-tan and Tenex-tan. She shares TOPS-10-tan's inventiveness, and relates to TOPS-20-tan's sense of feeling out of place, but is still known to meet with the rest of the family.
She worked as a cadet under VMS-tan's branch in the DEC Military. While loyal to VMS-tan, she was also frustrated towards her for only wanting her to use her VT-100 mode. She did not feel like she was truly being herself when she was expected to use only her VT-100 mode.
DOS-tans
She is friends with DR-DOS-tan, but has ambivalent attitudes towards MS-DOS-tan and PC-DOS-tan, alluding to the Rainbow 100's incomplete compatibility. She wants to be their friends, but also feeling like they are still her rivals. However, she briefly cooperated with MS-DOS-tan, alluding the Rainbow 100's and MS-DOS's involvement in creating FidoNet.
Windows 1.0
She is good friends with Windows 1.0-tan, alluding to the version of Windows 1.0 made for the Rainbow 100.
Amiga
After the DEC Military disbanded, she met Amiga-tan, and they quickly became friends because of their similar pasts. Both of them served in a militaristic faction, which they did not feel they fit in with, did not promoted past the cadet rank in their respective factions, and share a passion for art.
History and background
She is the only home computer among the DECs, a faction otherwise entirely made of high-end minicomputers and mainframes. That left her struggling with an identity crisis and indecisiveness, being the odd one out.
Being the only home computer in the faction didn't make her inherently inferior to her comrades, she just served in and led in a different sector than the rest of them. She was the sole member of DEC's home computer sector even as a cadet, she was to expand DEC's influence into the home computer territory, and she needed to follow different standards than the rest of the DECs. There was practically no one in the faction who could give her any guidance for how to follow those different standards, so she was on her own.
Mainly business-oriented, her main competitors were MS-DOS, PC-DOS, and Apple II. She sought out to follow the industry standards created by MS-DOS and PC-DOS, but didn't completely follow their standards out of the fear of losing her identity. Her attempt at a compromise didn't do her any good.
Her identity crisis left her with a confused and wishy-washy attitude, she couldn't carry out any campaigns with confidence. Many of her campaigns failed, she gained little territory for DEC from the IBM PCs, and she never got promoted. She was discharged from service around 1985, and spent much of her life afterwards living as a Wanderer.