Introduction
The Mainframe is a OS-tan universe by me, Sinclair-Speccy. Initially created in 2019 as Appendix, it has gone through some reworks to wipe away any old ideas that were awful and bad at the time of creation. My fanon aims to be free of glurge while including more male characters and redundant OSes/computers. The name change for the fanon occurred in 2021 as an attempt to start “fresh” all over again. Initially, The Mainframe mainly focused on making characters for iPhones and etc.
In fact it is one of the few places, if not the first (if we go by when my fanon was first made), to make non-oneshot characters for mobile devices. Most mobile focuesd characters tend to be oneshots whereas I am trying to give depth to a group of characters that only had one-shot designs before. These characters aren't shown here due to me reworking everything completely.
The rework of The Mainframe also led to me suggesting a place where other users could work on their own fanons and ideas as the place that once encouraged me to make my own ideas is now dead. I am no longer at this place. However, this mostly started because I had taken up the r/OStan subreddit when the original owner left it behind and people mostly talked on Discord, so I made the Discord first. I was then part of a commounity for a while until I decided to leave for personal reasons.
I would like to express that while there may be some historical aspects that mirror real life computing history, it is not intended to be a whole rewrite of computing history itself. That would be sheer impossible to do without making a lot of compromises, nor do I really intended to complete this. A lot of what is done on this section of this site is based upon what I enjoy such as Transformers, Star Wars and so on that aspects from these things will end up on pages simply because I like the concept.
Don't expect a lot of worldbuilding and art in regards to factions and characters either as I am more of a person who enjoys making characters and a lot of less an artist. Don't expect me to write about a faction's history or wars in a very complex way or not at all as these are way too complex.
Characters aren't made in any particular order. I originally intended to do this, only to realise this in itself is also restrictive in itself so characters are made when I am in the mood and have the motivation. Along with this while I do intend to do the major OS releases and some major hardware it will also have instances of picking and choosing what to personify...
History
The history is complicated, at least to me. It started of as a unnamed fanon in 2018 and then Appendix in 2019. Information on these are under as subpages for this one.
At the time of writing this it has been roughly 5 years since I have been a member of the OS-tan fandom and during those 5 years, I like to believe I learned some stuff as although it helped me make my own ideas it changed me as a human being as a whole. As for what it taught? I learned the following:
Key Learnings
- If you don’t like another person’s idea for a character, just remake them with your own ideas! I like to feel I learned this the hard way from being constrained to ideas that had already existed at the time when I joined 5 years ago but feeling like I had to use them as they were the “canon” characters.
- Research well, research properly. For my iPhone OS 1 character I did not research properly which resulted in them being the daughter of Tiger-tan instead of Leopard-tan since I misread an article about the original iPhone, stating that Mac OS X Tiger was released when the iPhone 2G came out.
- There should have never been a monopoly on OS-tans. This is kind of complex to explain but at the time there was only one place for OS-tan ideas that had been around since 2006. Now that is roughly 16 years and in those 16 years, that place slowly made its way to Wikipedia and some other places as the “main source” of information because no other place really existed at that time. Then in 2019 another place came along to battle that monopoly which had a strict canon, but fell too soon.
- Be nice to some people. You can be nice to some, but not all.
- Discussing your ideas may help with making new ideas. I used to be that kid who thought everyone was trying to hijack my ideas but in the end, I realised if you discuss your ideas with people who like the same stuff you may get new ideas.
- Try to ignore people who hate you. This was the hardest thing to try and learn since I’m still learning it.
Extra stuff no one is going to care about.
In all honestly from what I have seen and experienced myself, I am very sure OS-tans won't really make a comeback or a "full revival" unless we get an official Windows 11-tan. The fandom is so niche and the heydays of the OS-tan fandom are gone, mainly because the people from the fandom’s heyday have moved on with real life stuff or simply vanished off the internet.
I see people every once in a blue moon very interested in reviving the fandom like I once was in 2018, but at this rate it’s pretty much dead. If you are a person who wants to talk about OS-tans you can go to one of the two major wikis or the subreddit discord for r/OStans.
I'm 99% sure most people just wanna read up on OS-tans and draw art of them instead of making whole universes with huge lore and all the stuff. If you are someone reading this who wants to do this however, make it offsite as with its own website with Neocities or wiki hosted via Miraheze. I encourage this so you can do stuff with your own rules freely without having a larger body hover over it.