ALTIMIT OS
In the fictional .hack world, ALTIMIT OS is virtually the only surviving operating system after the Pluto's Kiss computer virus that destroyed much of the Internet in the mid-2000s. It is also the operating system that is used to play the popular, but fictional, MMORPG The World.
Altimit OS was created by Altimit Corporation, with Headoffices in San Francisco, California, USA.
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The World
"The World", the "star" application of Altimit OS, was released in December 2007, being the first online game available ever since the Pluto-Kiss incident. Millions of copies were downloaded the first month alone. By 2010, more than 20 million players joined the game.
The World began its life as a prototype called "The Fragment". With time, it evolved into "The World". Some Altimit OS programmers quit their jobs in Altimit to join the development crew of "The World". Later, the CyberConnect Corporation (CC Corp.) was founded. This company later released the game, and it is the one that administrates the game.
Known Features
Although the world (a native Altimit OS application) is a full 3D-world that immerses the game into the gameplay, no VR-gloves are used, just gamepads.
Altimit OS runs on a variety of systems, not just laptops, but also mobile phones and portable computers.
A basic Altimit OS includes a Mail reader
As seen in .hack//Liminality, The World, and ALTIMIT OS application, supports IPv6, but in a strange fashion, since IP addresses follow a different convention (295.252.352.436.325) as opposed to a real IPv6 address, which uses the form "3ffe:0501:0008:0000:0260:97ff:fe40:efab".
Hardware
Altimit OS might run in a RISC-class evolved hardware, similar (in some way) to the G3,G4 and G5 Macintosh computers.
The most common display devices in use are Widescreen Flat Panels, with VR Helmets used in "The World". It can be played without the helmet.
Other devices include wireless optical mice, keyboards, VR Helmets and gamepads.
Remarks
The idea of a single, secure and universal OS has been attempted several times in computer history. Some include Freedows, JNode or JAVA OS.
Nevertheless, ALtimit OS' underlying philosophy is a mix from past, present, and (likely) future OSes. Some GUI concepts are drawn from Open Source desktops environment, such as GNOME or KDE. GUI "eye candy" effects are very close to the Aqua engine found in Mac OS X incarnations (icon animation and resizing). The simplicity of the desktop is a reminiscence of the now discontinued BeOS.
In short, Altimit OS could be what the project .hack authors consider "the perfect OS", a computer utopia that cannot be reached with current hardware and software designs.
Although none of the .hack franchise products explains how such a wide adoption of a new OS took place in only 3 years after the shutdown of the internet, it is believed that governments and institutions either helped or forced this migration to citizens and enterprises.