Whirlwind

Whirlwind I-tan
Character Information
Common Names	Whirlwind I-tan
Other Names	Whirlwind-hime
Appearance
Design
Creator	The Colonel
First Appearance	Nov 2009
Technical Information
System Personified	Whirlwind I
Developer(s)	Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Debut	20 Apr 1951
Latest release	Circa 1959

Technical Details

Whirlwind I-hime personifies the MIT supercomputer that formed the basis for most modern computers and directly led to the development of the SAGE air defense system. First begun as a Navy flight simulator project, when the Navy bailed out the Air Force stepped in to keep it alive. One of the first electronic computers, she is a pioneer in output display and an early user of magnetic core memory making her among the fastest computers in the world.

Character Details

Whirlwind I-hime is usually shown as a bespectacled woman in her mid 30s of average height with long black hair wearing an ornate semi-19th Century style dress and sometimes a lab coat. Fond of ribbons, most of her jewelry is vacuum tube based. In her younger days she was a Naval Reservist, and thus wore the uniform of a US Navy officer but since her activation she has avoided any association with her former service.

A pleasant woman, Whirlwind-hime was renowned as an engineer for her assistance on various period computer projects but her greatest legacy is the creation of her daughter, SAGE. To a point her daughter could be considered the reason to her existence above all else. Indeed, when SAGE-sama's development was completed she was shut down. Unusually for the era, her relationship with her daughter was not only close but affectionate despite intervening factors. After her shut down for routine operations in 1959, Whirlwind-hime spent the next fourteen years in and out of a coma before her death in 1973. This lingering death may have contributed to SAGE's eventual instability. Notable as well is her rather heavy Boston accent.