OS-tan

An “OS Gijinka” (OS擬人化), also known as an “OS Girl” (OS娘, Ōesu Musume) or “OS-tan” (OSたん), is a collection of operating system gijinkas, specifically designed by users in Futaba Channel's Nijiura board. It should be noted that the Madobe Family are not apart of this group.

History

On August 6, 2003, there was a Nijiura user who posted about imagining their Windows ME computer as a clumsy girl. As there was an ongoing Gijinka Boom, “ME” became a maid¹⁾ along with “2K” and “XP”, then all the “Troubled Windows” (とらぶるうぃんどうず) fan art came in.

List of Characters

Windows 3.1

“3.1”, or Obaba-sama (大婆様), is a lolibaba that has long silver-purple hair, a large purple ribbon, and a light purple gothic lolita outfit with a gold “3.1” over the light purple ribbon on her chest.

She speaks like an elder and is often seen with a black cat representing MS-DOS because she's “technically an extension of MS-DOS.” She fought in the Great OS War, but is now retired.

Windows 95

“95” is a traditional Japanese woman that has long light brown hair, a ribbon with the colors of the Windows logo, and a pink kimono resembling an old default background, “HANA256.BMP” (花見.BMP).

She has a meek, mild-mannered personality, but do note that she fought in the Great OS War and won, so it isn't wise to refer to her as “baba” (ババ, lit. “old hag”) as she'll slice you with a katana.²⁾

Windows 98

“98”, or Hacchan (はっちゃん), is a girl that has short dark blue hair, a gold “98” hair ornament, white sleeveless shirt, long dark blue gloves, a dark blue pleated miniskirt, and dark blue stockings.

98 and 98SE were initially designed as cardboard toys as a joke,³⁾ but this was later changed. For personality, she is mentally a junior high school girl, originally shy but now a sadist.

Windows 98 SE

“98SE”, or Secchan (せっちゃん), is a girl with a short blue side ponytail, held by a red “98” hair ornament, and wears a teal schoolgirl outfit. Like 98, she has her own cardboard box toy as well.⁴⁾

She'll often wield a bottle opener or scissors since she would get attacked by 98's USB penis.⁵⁾ Also, while she might be shy, she is great at professional wrestling as she's a big fan of it.

Windows 2000

“2K”, rarely “2000”, is a reliable woman⁶⁾ that has short blue hair, glasses, cat ear speakers, maid headdress, a fair chest, and a long blue coat over a swimsuit with the colors of the Windows logo.

She often holds a folder, accompanying her office lady aesthetic. However, some artists often take certain liberties with her design, mainly to showcase her ass more.⁷⁾

Windows Me

“Me”, or Me-tan (Meたん), is a young clumsy girl that has green braided twintails, a sturdy ahoge, and blue-white maid outfit with an exclamation point badge. She carries a leek, referencing NEGiES.⁸⁾

While enthusiastic and loyal, she's very clumsy and tends to freeze up. She'll also come up with errors about de-fragmenting, an unplugged keyboard, etc. That aside, she loves roll cake.

Windows XP Professional

“XP”, alternatively known as Saseko (させ子)⁹⁾ or XP-tan (XPたん), is a girl that has long black-blue hair, with red ribbons and a red “XP” hair ornament in it, and wears a blue-white schoolgirl outfit.

Because she requires a lot of memory,¹⁰⁾ she gets depicted as a glutton and has large breasts. Her favorite dish is the Yoshinoya Beef Bowl. She's also plump, but is rarely drawn as such.

Windows XP Home

Homeko (ほめ子) is Saseko's twin sister who also has large breasts. However, she has a green ponytail, an red “X” hair ornament with a “P” earring, glasses, and a casual green jersey with no bra.

Due to the words “home” and “homo” looking alike, she became a yaoi-loving fujoshi. She can also illustrate manga and likes to cosplay, therefore she has a variety of outfits.

Notes

I've only listed the original OS-tan list, from Windows 3.1 to Windows XP, for various reasons:
1. Nobody is here for the rare, male OS designs. Let's just get that out of the way.
2. At minimum, there were 12 designs for Windows Vista and 14 designs for Windows 7. However, the community just never agreed on a unanimous design for these newer operating systems.
3. Despite their similarities, the Madobe Family actually has completely separate lore and all the prior operating systems have unseen counterparts according to their family tree.
There is a rumor that breast size were proportional to the amount of physical memory, considering that Windows XP requiring 64MB was a huge jump.Yeah... Today, Windows 11 requires about 4GB minimum.
In the Chinese wiki, “niáng” (娘) is the suffix, so XP-tan is “XP-niang” (XP娘).

External links

OS Girls on Pixiv Encyclopedia [JA]
Troubled Windows on Niconico Encyclopedia [JA]
OS Gijinka on the Futaba Nijiura @Wiki [JA]
OS-tan Collections Wiki [EN] - Some information is significantly dated and inconsistent.
- OS-tan Collections Forum
- OS-tan Collections Gallery (Old), OS-tan Collections Booru (New)
Category:OS Gijinka on Moegirl Encyclopedia [ZH]
OS-tan on Namu Wiki [KO]

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futaba

¹⁾

As a side note, “ME” is not a Nijiura Maid.

²⁾

Using the word “baba” (ババ) to 95 would get it sliced into half like “ba/ /ba…” (バ／／バァ).

³⁾ , ⁴⁾

The original joke designs for 98 and 98SE were roughly based on the “Vulcan 300” (バルカン300) toy from Zatch Bell! (Golden Gash!), but the joke eventually went stale that they were redesigned.

⁵⁾

Since 98 and 98SE were originally cardboard toys, 98 was almost designed with a penis, but it was later changed to be a detachable penis like a USB flash drive. This isn't very important.

⁶⁾

2K's famous catchphrase is “because I'm a reliable woman” (頼れる女ですから, tayoreru on'nadesukara).

⁷⁾

“2K” may be pronounced “tsūkē” (ツーケー) and, rearranged, you get “kētsū” (ケーツー) for “butt” (尻).

⁸⁾

NEGiES is an ancient Japanese firewall for Windows 2000 and XP with the latest update on November 4, 2005. The joke is that NEGiES sounds similar to “negi” (ネギ, lit. “leek”).

⁹⁾

“Saseko” (させ子) is a nickname that comes from the “X” and “P” keys generating “Sa” (さ) and “Se” (せ) respectively on Japanese keyboards.

¹⁰⁾

Windows XP Professional had required 256 KB memory, which was huge for its time. Today, it's not such a big deal since new operating systems require 4 GB and technology has changed drastically since then.

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