In an old book called "MS-DOS mühelos" of Werner "Tiki" Küstenmacher, DOS is shown as comic character already. I scanned 2 illustrations and uploaded them.
(http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k117/SystemKarela/DOS.png)
(http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k117/SystemKarela/DOS2.gif)
Yes, the OS is a tin on legs since Dose is German for tin.
That's cute.... ^__^
(and I do see they also appreciate the almost mirror-image similarity between MSDOS and PCDOS. ^.^)
But now we're into the whole debate whether OS-tans are meant to be alternative mascots of operating systems, are just simply Moe personfications of them (hence they're exclusively female and drawn more-or-less in that Animesque style). Otherwise, Amy the Squirrel for AmigaOS would also count as an OS-tan, and she's been around since the mid-80's as well. -v-
Even some recent examples that predate the OS-tan Phenomenon can be considered VERY close to being OS-tan-like. ^___^
We need not dig back farther than the great Merlin-chan, who's been vanquishing evildoers with the power of OS/2 long before ME-chan cowlicked her way into the net. ^__^
Wow! That is interesting!
I've also seen an iMac girl from a picture drawn in 1998, well before ME-tan and the other OS-girls
This is stuff that i wanted to know and now i do.
thank ;010
They are personifications plain and simple. Thats why they carry the traits of the system, and sometimes in unfavorable ways (freesing.. eating alot...) mascots would not advertize unfavorable things. As for them being just female.. the "tan" part as we all know is a cute way to slur chan. Chan is very rarely used for boys. SO techincly yes tans are only girls but thats a half truth because the Kuns are also part of the tan fandom.. just the male personifications.
If you're going to use the word "OS-tan", you're referring to the OS girls as created by Nijiura, with ME being the first one. There have been several different other mascot girls before that, but although they have have given some inspiration, they don't have anything to do with the OS-tan concept as it stands now.