QNX
 | 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. |
QNX (now known as QNX Neutrino) is a full-featured, minimalist real-time OS that is widely used in embedded systems. It is highly stable, and is used in automobiles, industrial applications, medical electronics, and nuclear power plants.
| QNX-tan | |
| [[File:|250px]] | |
| Character Information | |
|---|---|
| Common Names | QNX-tan |
| Other Names | QNX Neutrino |
| Human Name(s) | Quinn X. Dodge |
| Faction | Anti$oft Coalition |
| Lineage | independent (influenced by, but not descended from Unix) |
| Rival(s) | OS-9, ROMDOS, Windows CE (competitors among embedded OSes), the Linux Unix Consortium. |
| Appearance | |
| Height | 168 cm (5'6") |
| Hair Color | cyan |
| Eye Color | yellow |
| Weapon(s) | Photon beam cannon |
| Design | |
| First Appearance | Sep 2006 |
| Technical Information | |
| System Personified | QNX |
| Developer(s) | QNX Software Systems, RIM (since 2010) |
| Debut | 1982 (QNX), 2001 (QNX Neutrino) |
| Latest release | v7.0 (March 2017) |
Technical details
QNX became freeware with source code available to hobbyists when QNX Software Systems was bought out by Harmon Kardon in 2004, but the source code became restricted again when QNX was bought out by BlackBerry (formerly Research in Motion) in 2010. BlackBerry has used QNX as the basis of its OSes for the BlackBerry PlayBook, and their line of smartphones that were released between January 2013 and April 2015.
Character details
General
QNX-tan is represented as cyan-haired woman who dresses in semi-formal attire. She wears buttoned shirts with a lab coat and tie, and the tie always has an even number of tie clips on them, since she prefers to count only in even numbers. Her tendency for everything to be even and symmetric references the numbering scheme of QNX, which is now at version 7, but remained at version 6 for several years, and skipped versions 3 and 5. In her hair, she wears a hair clip on each side, one "QNX"-shaped, the other in the shape of the Neutrino logo.
She is very level-headed, difficult to faze, values minimalism and efficiency, and does not tolerate error from years of experience running mission-critical jobs. Among her fields of experience are mechanical work, nuclear physics, medicine, and medical technology. Her professional attitude even extends into her daily life out of force-of-habit; she is emotionally distant and somewhat reclusive because of all the responsibilities she has. When she interacts with others, she is polite and agreeable, but often does not talk with others for long; as a real-time OS-tan, she will drop the conversation when another job needs her attention.
Contrasting with her expertise in various fields of science and engineering, she is terrible at domestic tasks, and her attempts at cooking often turn into dangerous "science experiments".
QNX-tan is one of the most powerful OS-tans alive, since QNX is the most powerful and widely-used embedded OS. That gives her a tremendous hardware base to draw power from, which includes the nuclear power plants powered by QNX, but she is reluctant to use that power and willingly squanders it since she already has several responsibilities, and is afraid of getting corrupted by it.
Her weapon of choice is a photon cannon that she built herself.
Family and relationships
Unix Family
She is overall ambivalent towards the Unix Family, and has had a love-hate attitude towards them ever since her early life. From the beginning she admired Unix's philosophies and strived to be just like her. As she learned more about Unix as a person and her family, she grew disillusioned, noticing that Unix strayed far from her ideals, the hypocrisy of her daughters, and their in-fighting. The Unix Wars further disillusioned her.
During the Unix Wars, she was drafted to fight and serve as a medic, but was mistreated and discriminated against by the full-blooded Unices who considered her inferior for being 'just' a 'Unix-like' and not a full-blooded Unix OS-tan. For years, she had grown to despise most of them except for their defectors. Allegedly, she intentionally neglected Solaris' very sickly younger sister Spring OS-tan, whom Solaris trusted her with, and left her to die.
Years have passed, and she doesn't hate them anymore. Some of them now respect her for the power and influence she gained after the wars, though they might not admit it outright because of their strict, bloodline-based family structure. She hardly ever sees them though, being busy with her work.
Anti$oft Coalition
She is a part-time member of the Anti$oft Coalition, and while she doesn't have a vendetta against the Windows-tans, she joined because she became friends with OS/2-tan and RISC OS-tan back when they were founding the faction, combined with her sympathy for fellow underdogs. She's not much of an underdog anymore, except in the mobile market, but continues to be supportive of them despite their continuing bad track record as a group. She is willing to join in their tactics, because she feels it is one the only times she can drop her professionalism.
TRS-80-tan is slightly antagonistic of her, annoyed that QNX-tan keeps showing off new pieces of technology.
Blackberry-tan
Blackberry-tan became QNX's boss in 2010 and urged her to enter the mobile market. QNX-tan shows some discontent towards her, since her venture into the mobile market under Blackberry's orders went poorly. However, she is grateful that Blackberry-tan still grants her some autonomy, referencing the QNX communities that were allowed to continue since then.
Others
After leaving open sorcery to be a proprietary, commercial OS again, some of the open source OS-tans see her as a traitor.
History and background
Early years
QNX-tan was idealistic at first. She quickly gained a postive reputation for her stability and reliability. In 1984, she had her first major assignment in the Canadian education market as the OS for the Unisys ICON, which she served for several years, though she would face competition against MS-DOS-tan, Apple II-tan, and the Mac-tans. Through the late 1980's and early 1990's, her idealism faded as she was phased out of the market as later ICON machines would run MS-DOS or Windows, and because of the Unix Wars.
She was drafted into the Unix Wars as a medic in 1988, because she was phased out of her original market and no longer had that job to exempt her from being drafted.
Unix Wars
2010-present
In 2010, corresponding with RIM buying out QNX, Blackberry-tan became her boss. QNX-tan gave up on open sorcery to be a fully-commercial OS again, but still acknowledges her hobbyist followers.
Entering the mobile market, she and Blackberry-tan were competing against Windows Mobile, iOS and Android. Their venture didn't go well, the Playbook running QNX wasn't, and still isn't very successful, but QNX-tan and Blackberry-tan will try again as they are still competing.
In her spare time, when Blackberry-tan doesn't need her, QNX-tan continues her various engineering work.
