Recent posts

#41

OS-tan Fan-Fics, Comics and Fan-Stuff / Re: FREE COOKIES!

Last post by Bella - August 16, 2025, 08:27:26 AM

Looks great!

I really want to make some vintage computer tributes at historically significant sites but I'm not sure which/how. There's already a pretty good DEC tribute going in Maynard which was my first thought. Maybe I'll throw in a pdp-8.

#42

OS-tan Talk / Re: More IBM-tans III: The One...

Last post by stewartsage - August 14, 2025, 09:57:36 PM

Ahhhh!  You finished her!  EDVAC-tan really was plagued with so much misfortune and the best anyone seems to be able to say is that she was the second best computer at Aberdeen.  I guess that's the sorrow a lot of her contemporaries too.  How do you think she gets along with the likes of ORDVAC-tan or NAREC-tan?  Not to mention the up-and-coming commercial replacements.  Did she inherit her "dads" suspicion of RCA and IBM?

#43

OS-tan Fan-Fics, Comics and Fan-Stuff / Re: FREE COOKIES!

Last post by VonDaab - August 14, 2025, 11:58:40 AM

Caught the Wplace bug. However I've noticed there is a major lack of Os-tans there.
So far only paid tribute to my local arcade.

#44

General Chat / Re: Topicless thread

Last post by stewartsage - August 13, 2025, 09:51:26 PM

So Saseko's new shoes just dropped.

oh god oh fuck

#45

General Chat / Re: Topicless thread

Last post by Goujer - August 13, 2025, 09:06:33 PM

So Saseko's new shoes just dropped.

Oh god I need them, oh god, oh no....

#46

General Chat / Re: Topicless thread

Last post by Bella - August 13, 2025, 04:14:59 PM

So Saseko's new shoes just dropped.

This might actually be the thing that convinces me to buy crocs.

#47

General Chat / Re: Topicless thread

Last post by VonDaab - August 13, 2025, 01:42:45 PM

So Saseko's new shoes just dropped.

[Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer (EDVAC)-tan]

#48

OS-tan Talk / Re: More IBM-tans III: The One...

Last post by Bella - August 12, 2025, 11:01:01 PM

Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer (EDVAC)-tan

General facts:
- Automaton, though it's hard to tell at first glance
    - Refined ideas pioneered in ENIAC.
- Physically active
    - Smaller, simpler and faster than its predecessor.
- Her body was incomplete for a long time, worked around it with prostheses
    - Slow development, changed significantly over course of project.
- Proud of her advancement, but disappointed she didn't have the freedom to be weird and different like ENIAC-tan
    - More formalized design, less piecemeal and experimental.
- Fantastic memory
    - Stored program computer.
- Pressured by high expectations from the start
    - Project ran concurrently with ENIAC compensating for its shortcomings.
- Sociable, met and worked with many outsiders, not shy about discussing the nature of computers. (Which she came to regret.)
    - Foundational computer, inspired the creation of others of its era.
- Trust issues.
    - [waves broadly at EDVAC history]
- Glory stolen by her half-sisters
    - EDSAC and Manchester Mk. I completed before EDVAC, and IAS Machine remembered as "the originator".
- A bit aimless, has ambitious ideas but has trouble applying herself
    - Big ideas, implementation issues.
- Recruited into the army as a 2nd Lieutenant.
- Military service gave her the direction she'd lacked all her life.
- Pragmatic and hard working, loves her job in ordnance and the army.
- Badly hurt in a spontaneous combustion, but recovered fully.
    - Suffered an electrical fire in 1952.
- Retired(?) at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel
    - Used and upgraded until 1962.
- Aware of her influence on future generations of computers but seems to gain no fulfillment from it.
- Status: Exceptionally dead

"Today nothing remains of the EDVAC except a few small plug-in circuit elements stored carefully away in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History and a larger section of electronics in the basement of the Moore School of Electrical Engineering. said to have been part of the original construction effort. The EDVAC - the machine that launched us into the computer age - is no more, and many who worked on her would say, "Just as well.""

Relationships:
- Close, but complicated relationship with ENIAC-tan
    - Though EDVAC was directly inspired by ENIAC, it's defined mostly by its differences from its predecessor.
- Has a large, dysfunctional human "family"
    - EDVAC development committee frequently in conflict.
- Initially got along with her uncles, but soured after the creation of IAS-tan ...
    - von Neumann & Goldstein contributed to EDVAC, but fell out with the team after the First Draft controversy. 
- Intense, one-sided enmity with IAS-tan, who she blames for her misfortunes.
- Forced to work with her niece(s) ORDVAC-tan and BRLESC-tan(?).
    - Other computers at the BRL
- Aware of, but ignores, her half-sisters EDSAC and Manchester Mk. I
- Feels abandoned by her "fathers", has a strained relationship with the Univacs
    - Eckart & Mauchley departed the project and formed their own company.
   
Appearance & personality:
- Bears resemblance to ENIAC-tan and IAS-tan: slender, olive skintone, short black hair worn in curls, gold-amber eyes and soft features. Fuller figure than ENIAC, but leaner than IAS.
- Doll-like features present but less pronounced. Mechanical trappings (wires, plugs) hidden.
- Disheveled, contemporary 40s attire in black, hat with short black veil. Carries around counting tools and artillery tables.
- WAC uniform when on duty.
- Reflects her mother's pride and primness, with none of her graciousness or patience. Bitterly wounded, though she's gotten better at hiding her regrets she'll bare her feelings when the conversation turns to her past. Despite her scientific acumen she's less academic than others in her family, very hands-on and happiest when she has a practical problem to solve. Sabotaged by obsessive tendencies. Well-regarded and respected in the army/ordnance computer community, but tends to go unnoticed by the wider world of -tans.

#49

OS-tan Fan-Fics, Comics and Fan-Stuff / Re: FREE COOKIES!

Last post by Goujer - August 01, 2025, 05:43:02 PM

So sharp, so nice <3

#50

OS-tan Fan-Fics, Comics and Fan-Stuff / Re: FREE COOKIES!

Last post by VonDaab - July 31, 2025, 02:57:26 PM

I'll just waste people's time some High Quality Vidyagaem fan fart.