It's only fair and I can't draw!
I don't think the ST line of computers was that popular in the US or Japan but it's worth a shot so if anyone's interested here are some pictures for inspiration:
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Atari_ST_1040.jpg)
First off is the beautiful machine in all its glory complete with Atari mouse, hard-disc and monitor.
(http://www.old-computers.com/museum/photos/Atari_Falcon30_Keyboard_1.jpg)
The Falcon came after but they kept the case. This is a close-up of one end; check out those smooth lines!
(http://media.arstechnica.com/images/gui/16-atarigem.gif)
This is the Atari version of GEM, the GUI for the computer. The gaudy green colour is synonymous with the machine so I would have though it would feature somewhere in Atari-Tan's wardrobe.
(http://www.old-computers.com/store/goodies/graphs/design_atari_st_bee.gif)
This is the ST's equivalent of the hour-glass. Buzz...
(http://test.megatonik.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/atari_logo-040607.jpg)
Finally, the old Atari Fuji mountain logo before its rebirth
The ST, back in the day, was best known for its music capabilities (Fat Boy Slim famously used one) but people gamed on them too although the Amiga was largely superior (I'll be shot for saying this) in that department. Similarities to the Amiga are its bad reliability and keyboard stuck onto the rest of the machine design. I could go on but the Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_ST) is a good place to start to learn more if you're interested.
Cheers!
PS: I'm not sure Atari-Tan is a good name as Atari have a huge range of machines, not to mention their arcade side. I'm an ST fan but feel free to make a 5200-Tan or whatever too. There's no Commodore-Tan after all so perhaps ST-Tan is a better name.
I think you need some checking up the galleries alley, bro.
THERE'S BEEN PROGRESS IN THIS DEPARTMENT YOU KNOW >:3
Whoa, where?! I made a thorough look just to be sure, search query and everything! I'll go see again but I'd appreciate some links, ta.
Here she is, along with her stepsister Atari DOS/Atari 8-bit-tan (http://kattlanna.deviantart.com/art/AtariDOS-tan-and-AtariTOS-tan-116072546)
Can we has for gallery? I just checked and I don't see an Atari-tan in there o__O...
Also MagikGimp, feel free to stop by the Member Intro thread, we could use some activity in there that doesn't involve absurdity on behalf of our more senior members (myself included). Also, it's good to tell us a little about yourself (I stress, a little, it's not like we want to know your name or a list of your greatest fears).
Quote from: "IanDanKilmaster"Also MagikGimp, feel free to stop by the Member Intro thread, we could use some activity in there that doesn't involve absurdity on behalf of our more senior members (myself included). Also, it's good to tell us a little about yourself (I stress, a little, it's not like we want to know your name or a list of your greatest fears).
Done.
AtariTOS-Tan (terrible name!) is pretty sweet although the artist seems to be a little confused as to what TOS is (it's the OS not specifically the GUI so not a direct variant of GEM; rather Atari *cough* stole GEM from what eventually became Apple to use on their machines). The colours are fab and the inclusion of the logo is great and I like the idea of the smoke and mirrors but I'm not sure that it works all that well. I mean I had to read the description as I was a little confused. Not sure what the diamond on her forehead is all about either. The rest of the description made me chuckle; she is a bit of a loner and a poser although really at heart she's a cheap girl who will welcome anyone as long as they never leave her side for another Tan (there was a lot of piracy on the ST which attracted people who didn't want to spend much more money on top of the cost of their cheap computer).
I think if I had to change anything about that design it'd be the diamond for bee hair-clips, shoulder pads on the blazer (80s) and remove that stitching, get rid of the mirror although the microphone works well and just make her more slutty as she is all image and little substance at the end of the day ;012 .
I'm the artist of that pic, btw. I'm glad that you mostly like it. I'll get to revising it but I'm keeping in the mirror because she cares about her looks a lot.
Maybe I did get confused a bit but Atari TOS is based off of Digital Research's GEM OS, which was released about a year after Apple's Mac OS. And now that you mention it, Atari ST-tan DOES sound better than Atari TOS-tan! With the vintage home computer-tans which represent both their hardware and OS (or version of BASIC), it is strange and inconsistent that I refer to Atari ST-tan and Atari 8-bit-tan by their names of their OSes! ^^;
yeep. nice to have you here, gimpi! =D
at any rate, hast thou introduced thyself yet?
and guys, would this be for the os fan art forum? :\
yesh, it is a rather awkward name. and all -tans are subject to a little design alterations (ME with long or short skirt/sleeves, sleeve shape, shoe style, not to mention the hair by her face, ect. same for 2k, seen many slight design variations. find someone with nothing better to do. i'd do it, but right now i'm failing a class, and idk if other forum members would harpoon me for it (except aurora, aurora-san's sou nice to me. not flamy at all. <3 )
YEEP!! i agree with some of the design alterations you suggested. but idk bout the shoulder pads, so tacky. but then, maybe it fits? xD
I love that this thread is getting so much attention; have YOU played Atari today?! ;D
OK Aurora or Kattlanna or whatever you prefer to be known as, let's collab!
What can we do with the mirror, I think she needs at least one free hand don't you? How about a little purse or make-up bag she could have on her arm or throw over her shoulder?
Talking about shoulders, 80s power suits are dead sexy:
(http://whatmakesmebeautiful.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/02/11/suit.jpg)
Lastly, about her name; it's a tricky one as first there was the ST, then the STF, STM & finally STFM not to mention the STE ;015 (!) but I think sticking with just ST is best, it is understood to be the general name. Also Amiga-Tan isn't called Commodore Amiga-Tan so perhaps ditch the Atari too? Would people know what computer she is then?
Man I wish I could draw, my creative juices are starting to boil.
ST might get confused with SE, out beloved little castrater. :]
y'know, you can draw, you're just not trying. all it takes is practice. (you should see my early work, it scares me now. o__o; )
Quoteyesh, it is a rather awkward name. and all -tans are subject to a little design alterations (ME with long or short skirt/sleeves, sleeve shape, shoe style, not to mention the hair by her face, ect. same for 2k, seen many slight design variations. find someone with nothing better to do. i'd do it, but right now i'm failing a class, and idk if other forum members would harpoon me for it (except aurora, aurora-san's sou nice to me. not flamy at all. <3 )
She's a mod she's obligated to be nice to you :P. I keed, but try to take it easy.
Anyway, in regards to -tan designs. I give Aurora loads of credit for choosing to do such obscure -tans, not only does it require effort strictly as an artist, but also a lot of research if you're not already familiar enough with your subject. Then she has to find a creative way to implement those things in her designs. I'm not trying to be a defensive fanboy or anything ><; - I'm just curious as to how much input from forum members is she already getting on her designs. Please help in whatever way you can, MagikGimp!
I didn't know that there were so many releases of the Atari ST series! She should just be called Atari ST-tan or ST-tan since the original ST was first in the series and to keep this simple!
I'm modifying ST-tan's design right now and adding in your new suggestions, MagikGimp! Thanks for the suggestions as you're helping improve her design by adding in more ST references and some 80's fashion! :D
I don't get a lot of input or suggestions from other members so I think it's great that an expert on the subject can help me out!
Quote from: "Chocofreak13"ST might get confused with SE, out beloved little castrater. :]
I've started to like SE more and more these days o__O
Here's a revised ST-tan:
[attachment deleted by admin]
I hate vandalising other people's work but as I can't draw it's the best I could do to try and get my ideas across for ST-Tan (see attachment) =/
1) Bee hair-clips instead of diamond (what was that for anyway?), not sure if it's in the right place and she should have two of course. They should also be more 3D like XP-Tan's XPs.
2) Purse instead of mirror. It could have a mirror and make-up showing poking out of the top. I think the bomb design (I totally forgot that icon!) would look better on it instead of the belt of bombs I've given her. I've had second thoughts about that but it leads to my next edit:
3) Flip the hem upside-down, not sure what made me do that but I think it was to make more of the Atari logo which I think needs to be larger and slightly more curvy.
4) Shoulder pads in stitching instead of on the cuffs.
5) Boooooobs =D
6) I also thought of maybe writing GEM or TOS down her socks as some of the other Tans have on their clothing.
Again sorry for ruining your fab pic; I would have started on my own piece but it would have looked even worse. Let me know what you think of my ideas.
LAST MINUTE EDIT!: I've just seen your revised ST-Tan and wow, it's like you read my mind!! I don't want to have you spend too much more time on this and I've got to get to bed anyway so I'm going to call it a day for now but doesn't she look great ;019 (I mean yours, not mine)?!
[attachment deleted by admin]
One is for sure. ATARI ST-tan HAS to have a bad singing voice. It's a must.
Quote from: "MagikGimp"5) Boooooobs =D
Eeehm, no... because the kind of memory the Atari ST uses is the same size as a modern-day CPU-cache... And rule is, the less memory, the less boobs...
And why the bad voice?
RAM and breast size for OS-tans is relative. For example, the Apple Lisa had 1 MB of RAM... back in 1983! That was huge amount back then so Lisa-tan is portrayed as "well-endowed". The Amiga and Atari ST also had a lot of RAM back in their days.
On the other hand, if the "RAM and breast size" rule were absolute, we'd start seeing flat XP-tans within a few years!
Of course there is some artistic license and that rule is not set in stone. Take for example, the 98-tans and ME-tan who are usually flat as a board despite having higher requirements than 95.
I don't think ST-tan should have a bad singing voice- I think I read somewhere that the ST had very good sound capabilities! After all, Amiga-tan (who is a great singer) was one of her competitors!
I thought the ST wasn't exactly swimming in RAM, even for those days...
Interesting stuff guys, I didn't know about the boobs to RAM ratio, lol made me nerd-laugh though. The Amiga and ST had around the same amount of RAM each at the time and both could be upgraded. The usual for the average gamer was 1MB; compare that to 1GB being small today... ;013
Give her a boob job but nothing approaching XP-Tan sized.
As for her voice, I'm at a split decision. It's all down to personal taste as to whether you love or hate the ST's Yamaha bleeps (I personally can't get enough) but she was loved by musicians as she was cheap and came with MIDI ports included built-in straight out of the box and what you have to understand about MIDI is it's not how those tiny files sound on your PC but what they're played through. Remember polyphonic ring-tones? They're just MIDI files (bet you wished you hadn't paid for them now eh?) and they sound pretty good as your phone had a better synthesiser chip than your PC's software. Back in the 80s & 90s the MIDI technology was essentially the same but the music was recorded directly from the synths; a similar thing is in effect today it's just more advanced. So yeah, you could very quickly and easily hook up your kit to your ST, boot up your copy of Cubase or whatever and lay that track or something like that... You can see it in action in this episode of Bad Influence! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDlbgZ5s8iM), a British video game show for kids back then. There's another episode from the last series too where they cover the same ground but the poor ST gets thrown away for having crappy games; shame on them!
I think ST-Tan should have a good voice but sing cheesy pop numbers the kind of which make no. 1 but everyone hates. Perhaps she wins Pap Idol or something.
True full midi support on a system is loved by musicians...
Hmm... I dont really know why I posted that statement, as it was solely a case of personal taste. I blame the fact that it was morning and I wasnt really awake...
But yeah, I've stumbled upon some really, really bad Atari tunes. Ones that made you want to stab yourself in the ears so you dont need to hear it ever again.
Isn't that the case with alot of 70s and 80s stuff? ^_^
If I remember rightly, the Atari ST had the AY-3-8910, the same sound chip that was in the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. Now, I don't have the slightest clue WHY they used it, as it was obsolete by that time and the ST was designed to compete with Commodore's Amiga which had a FAR superior sound chip and graphics capabilities. I honestly don't know why they bothered.
Tramiel wanted to destroy Commodore, so he had to scramble to come up with something to beat the new Amiga and he designed the Atari ST. He was doomed from the start.
Quote from: "Smokey"Isn't that the case with alot of 70s and 80s stuff? ^_^
In videogame music?
No no no. You got it all wrong. Chiptunes can be awesome. Its just Atari ones that doesnt sound right.
Yamaha chip? No clue. only thing I know about that is that the Sega MD used one, thus all MD games had the same electronic "bonking" sound in the music.
If you really listen to samples used in Atari tunes, you can hear that they are lot more compressed and distorted than the Amigas.
I actually meant 70s and 80s stuff in general... ^_^
To elaborate more on my opinion of the ST's sound chip (and to continue even further off topic, sorry Aurora!) it is almost the same as the Specky's (and indeed a few other older machines too) but it sounds different to the point where I can't listen to too much music from those older machines but I can with the ST's. It's probably a nostalgia thing (my first computer was an ST) but I stick to my guns that I enjoy the sound. I could give you a ton of examples too but I digress; I think we should concentrate on ST-Tan, that is why I started this thread after all.
PS: This is from Wikipedia: "Although the chip wasn't designed to handle raw PCM data (digital samples), the effect could be simulated. The chip used a simple OR based mixing function for combining noise and tone on its three channels and could be persuaded to produce a level non-zero wave. By altering the volume this level wave could be shaped into a waveform. Obviously, this involved more CPU usage than chips designed for this purpose (such as the MOS Technology 8364 "Paula" as used in the Commodore Amiga), but it was nevertheless a technique widely used on platforms such as the Atari ST to play sampled music, and on the Amstrad CPC to play short audio samples, in some games."
This backs up the fact that the ST-Tan can do what the Amiga-Tan can too, just not as well. Atari used this chip as it was cheaper and besides it's not even used for MIDI if you use a synthesiser or sequencer or whatever (I'm not an expert).
i HATE midi files!!! >__< but then, there are ALOT of popular songs i hate too, so i guess the cheesy pop songs idea works out well, at least for me.
all this talk of soundchips reminds me of soundboards, which reminds me of alienware.
there should be an alienware-tan!!! and she should be BADASS!!!
urge to rage on OT...urge to rage...urge to rage...urge to rage...
Quote from: "NejinOniwa"urge to rage on OT...urge to rage...urge to rage...urge to rage...
OT?
OT = off topic.
but yeah, aurora, the new ST-tan is really nice, love the colouring. :3
Quote from: "Chocofreak13"love the colouring. :3
Indeed, her colours are the best thing about her. The greens are there (later versions of GEM changed to a slightly lighter shade), the white and black of the logo (although this could be rainbow instead although I doubt that would look right, see below) and her hair is the colour of the case so yeah without a doubt the colours are bang on.
TOS v1.04 is known as RAINBOW TOS because the logo looks like this on the about screen:
(http://atari.st/g/about_logo2.gif)
And Atari isn't dead, last thing i heard from one of her siblings was Test Drive Unlimited, wich was from Atari HD...
Also a nice logo, albeit what simpler...
Quote from: "Smokey"And Atari isn't dead, last thing i heard from one of her siblings was Test Drive Unlimited, wich was from Atari HD...
Also a nice logo, albeit what simpler...
A lot of people know the brand but the Atari of today is nothing to do with what the name represented in the past; read the Wikipedia article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari) for more information.
The new logo looks more modern but I don't think it should be the one on ST-Tan's skirt.
Well, the new logo is basically the old logo + red only...
Yep different colors, same style...
At least Atari survived, btw, there are a host of soft-/ hardwarecompanys who went belly-up in the nineties...
You don't understand; Bushnell's company is effectively dead, only the name and logo (albeit red & slightly more curvy) remain. The brand name was so well known (there's a business term I can't think of right now) that it's used these days and people go "oh yeah Atari, they're cool, I'll buy that". I mean the company has already been sold twice... =/
Anyway, I think it's time we finished ST-Tan's design and got her into the gallery where she belongs. I enjoyed helping in her development (I can't take any credit for her invention of course) and I'd like to work on another Tan some time, possibly other Atari machines, who knows. What I do know is that there are tons of Tan's yet to be born(?); that didn't sound too weird I hope...
Quote from: "Chocofreak13"OT = off topic.
but yeah, aurora, the new ST-tan is really nice, love the colouring. :3
Thanks! She's not actually a brand new character though, my original chibi ST-tan design is in my user gallery at OSC and was made in the summer of 2008.
There are people who say that the bright color scheme of Atari TOS is very gaudy but I like it! :)
Quote from: "Red_Machine"
Tramiel wanted to destroy Commodore, so he had to scramble to come up with something to beat the new Amiga and he designed the Atari ST. He was doomed from the start.
It's so sad that Tramiel, the founder of Commodore wanted to cause its demise after he left. Well... Commodore eventually caused its own demise with bad marketing!
What the heck happened anyways? (Did all the competent people at Commodore leave too?) In the early 80's Commodore made great advertisements for the VIC-20 and C64 which were so successful they brought the gaming industry to its knees! But their attempts at advertising the Amiga were half-***ed and half-hearted at best.
Quote from: "MagikGimp"
You don't understand; Bushnell's company is effectively dead, only the name and logo (albeit red & slightly more curvy) remain. The brand name was so well known (there's a business term I can't think of right now) that it's used these days and people go "oh yeah Atari, they're cool, I'll buy that". I mean the company has already been sold twice... =/
I think the term you're looking for is
brand loyalty.
Atari's history is confusing but reading the Wikipedia article did clear things up for me. Too bad that the original Atari that made game consoles and home computers is long dead. :(
Quote
Anyway, I think it's time we finished ST-Tan's design and got her into the gallery where she belongs. I enjoyed helping in her development (I can't take any credit for her invention of course) and I'd like to work on another Tan some time, possibly other Atari machines, who knows. What I do know is that there are tons of Tan's yet to be born(?); that didn't sound too weird I hope...
I'm glad you could help me improve ST-tan's design!
What other new OS-tan characters did you have in mind. There already is also a catch-all character for the Atari 8-bit computers but about characters to represent the original Atari game consoles?
-----
Here's a second, minor revision to ST-tan's design:
[attachment deleted by admin]
Quote from: "Aurora Borealis"It's so sad that Tramiel, the founder of Commodore wanted to cause its demise after he left. Well... Commodore eventually caused its own demise with bad marketing!
What the heck happened anyways? (Did all the competent people at Commodore leave too?) In the early 80's Commodore made great advertisements for the VIC-20 and C64 which were so successful they brought the gaming industry to its knees! But their attempts at advertising the Amiga were half-***ed and half-hearted at best.
Commodore's internal politics were a complete and total shamble. When the Amiga A600, the first model designed and built in the UK, was launched the MD of Commodore UK said it was a "complete and utter screw-up". Funny thing is, he had the first one (serial no. "1") in his office XD.
i love it.
btw, on the topic of 80's computers, is there a franklin-tan? my friend russel's first computer was a franklin (or maybe a pirate of it)