MIT Society
 | This article is a work in progress. …well, all the articles here are, in a way. But this one moreso, and the article may contain incomplete information and editors’ notes. |
| MIT Society | |
|---|---|
| [[Image:|50px]] | |
| Founder: | Whirlwind |
| Leader: | None |
| Matriarch: | Whirlwind, TX-0 and CTSS are prominent figures |
| Type of faction: | Academic society |
| Main social roles: | Academia, science, research, defense |
| Territory: | |
| Established: | 1940s |
| Dissolution: | Ongoing |
| Predecessor: | None |
| Successor: | Various minicomputer factions, notably DEC; widespread impact throughout OS-tandom. |
| ------- | |
HIstory
Early
Though bloodlines existed within it, MIT's computer culture was less a family and more a loose affiliation of OS-tans bound by organizational, political and regional ties. Though evidence exists that computer-tans of some stripe existed previous, Whirlwind-tan is the first documented MIT computer and helped to establish traditions followed by subsequent MIT systems, in particular the focus on bridging the gap between humans and computer-tans via interactive computing. Along with directly influencing the culture through her research and teaching, Whirlwind made a mark through her three children, SAGE, TX-0 and PDP-1, and her adopted daughter, CTSS, each of whom influenced MIT culture in their own way.
- SAGE (born ca. 1951) inadvertently helped establish MIT's Lincoln Laboratory and their tradition of working with the government and military on a variety of computing projects;
- TX-0 (born 1955) established the tradition of "small computing" at MIT, in the process sparking the rise of the minicomputer race (DEC in particular), as well as contributing heavily to the creation of the Hacker Culture;
- PDP-1 (born 1959) followed in her elder sister's footsteps and played a founding role in the creation of the DEC Faction;
- CTSS (born 1961) was the foundress of MIT's OS-tan lineage, in particular their tradition of powerful timesharing OS-tans.
Originating from Lincoln Laboratory, LINC-tan was important both inside and outside of MIT (being one of the founding figures of the minicomputer race, she later joined PDP-1 in the DEC Faction). In the mid-1960s, a number of OS-tans rose to prominence at MIT, most notably CTSS, her daughter Multics and her pupils ITS and CP/CMS. They were among the first "modern" operating systems and signaled a permanent shift from primitive batch-processing systems and toward more highly-capable, personable and magically-adept timesharing OS-tans.
