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Overview
4690, formally known as "IBM 4690", is a retail-focus operating system that much resembles DOS in interface an interaction. This proprietary operating system offered by IBM to retail customers for operating its Supermarket®, GSA®, Chain Drug Sales®, and ACE® retail platforms is based off the Flex OS, originally developed by Digital Research. Though the 4690 operating system resembles DOS, much of its internal functions and behavior are much like the commercial UNIX operating systems.

Hardware Requirements
In order to make the 4690 operating system marketable for IBM, and IBM alone, hardware requirements and seemingly limited device drivers are used so that specific IBM hardware is required. Most notably, the use of an "NVRAM" card is required and these cards only work with specific IBM-manufactured servers. The NVRAM card, which is either a Store Loop Adapter (for connecting to proprietary IBM Store Loop Networks) or an NVRAM module card, is required for holding the device address of the system running the 4690 address and for providing memory for file-handling functions (primarily the Power Line Disturbance feature of the OS, which protects file writing from power-loss by queuing it until it is completely written). IBM provides a "Controller Matrix" document with a list of compatible IBM servers for use with 4690 OS.

System Interface
The 4690 operating system's interface, as mentioned above, is much like DOS. However, typical users are not greeted with a command prompt and required to enter commands. The 4690 operating system boots to a welcome screen where you enter a login ID and password. After this, most functions for the majority of users are menu-driven. One of the most popular 4690 software packages, the Supermarket® application, is completely menu-driven by selecting numeric menu items and navigating using the Enter and F-keys. Unlike DOS, the 4690 operating system supports background applications that can be pre-configured to run at boot. These are controlled by the background applications screen.

Notable Features and Usability
One of the most notable things about the 4690 operating system is its ability to provide a "redundancy infrastructure". IBM designed the 4690 OS to work on one machine with one or more other 4690 servers. Machines running 4690, commonly called "controllers", are assigned an ID that is stored in the NVRAM card. This typically follows the convention of CC, DD, etc and must be two letters. When put together with other 4690 boxes, a machine running 4690 will begin exchanging packets and will associate itself with the other systems if their "Store Number" matches. There will be a machine that is pre-designated as a "Master" and either the same or another machine pre-designated as the "File Server". These machines control communications functions and provide various network-based services. The "File Server" machine is the actual location of the currently active files. This machine will have a "Backup File Server", which will have an exact mirror of distributed files in case of failure.

Another notable feature of the 4690 operating system is that it is extremely stable. While not extremely advanced with technology, the 4690 operating system has been in use by a number of retailers for many years and has gained a reputation for extreme reliability.

Technology and Software
To anyone who has used the 4690 operating system, it's pretty obvious that it is not the most up-to-date on current technologies or software support. Just recently, IBM, with 4690 operating system version 5, has incorporated new security enhancements, such as SSH (instead of the telnet interface) and enhanced operator security (allowing alpha-numeric operator IDs, password complexity requirements, password expiration, etc). These features, prior to OSv5, were not available. In order to retain the marketable value of the 4690 operating system, IBM heavily guards knowledge of building applications for the operating system and has limited its ability to run things by developing proprietary languages for use on the system. One such language is IBM CBASIC, which resembles the BASIC language, but has a lot of the familiar earmarks of a C-based language (memory handling, etc). 4690 also supports Metaware High-C and strict versions of the Java language. With Metaware High-C, you must be using a special IBM toolkit with libraries for 4690 to develop and compile applications on other operating systems (or use the tools on the 4690 OS). Starting with OSv3, IBM included support for Java applications to run on 4690. With this enhancement, IBM has allowed a now open-source language to operate on its operating system. Although this seems like a great step, in keeping with IBM fashion, the Java development on the 4690 platform is far from standard and basically molests the very nature of Java development in general. To learn more, simply attend an IBM workshop on Java application development for 4690.

4690 in Your World
Most people unknowingly interact with devices using the 4690 operating system on a daily basis. The majority of large grocery retailers are using the 4690 operating system in one form or another for their operations because of its features in the grocery retail business. While not all of these retailers elect to use the IBM 4690 terminals, enhancements from third-party companies like QVS software and NCR have helped to allow things like NCR RealPOS® registers, NCR self-checkout terminals, and ECS/Fujitsu self-checkout terminals to interface with the 4690 operating system.

Examples

* Jesse McNally was attracted to Cordelia Chase, who snubbed him for his awkwardness. As a vampire, Jesse approached Cordelia in a predatory manner, filled with confidence and charisma, and for once she consented to dance with him.

* Harmony Kendall was a vain, vapid, and snobbish member of the Cordettes before being sired. As a vampire, she was still vapid and snobbish, and remarked that it was harder for her to do the right thing without a soul, although she remained mostly unchanged.

* Drusilla was a pious and chaste Catholic girl, gifted/cursed with psychic abilities and disturbed because she did not know what was causing her visions. As a vampire, Drusilla is highly sexual and kinky, and revels in her psychic powers.

* Darla despised religion as a human and as a vampire. Angel mentions that Darla had a fascination with religious wars. Christian religion rejected Darla's lifestyle as a human, so it seems the vampire Darla enjoys religious war as an example of religion causing destruction and bloodshed instead of salvation.

* Willow was a studious and cautious teenage girl, a bookish wallflower. As the series progressed, Willow becomes a more assertive character, a powerful witch, and a lesbian. As a vampire, in the episode Doppelgängland, Willow is an assertive vampire steeped in sexuality, both homosexual and heterosexual.

* Angelus: Liam lived haunted by his father's disapproval and expectations that he would never be more than a lazy, womanizing drunk. As a vampire, Angelus is driven by the memory of his father's contempt to show that he can be something great: the most flamboyantly sadistic vampire ever recorded.

* Spike: William was an overly-romantic, pseudo-intellectual outcast, ridiculed by his contemporaries whom he regarded as ignorant and insensitive. As a vampire, Spike lashes out at society, rejecting bureaucracy and authority and finding pleasure in mayhem and chaos, while still remaining a romantic at heart. In addition, William was a shy young man with a peaceful nature and a love for poetry; in contrast, he later was considered one of the most violent vampires to exist, though not nearly so much as Angelus. While he lacked much of the utterly sadistic qualities of Angelus, Spike loved the thrill of simple combat more. Angelus enjoyed combat, but loved tormenting his enemies to the point of despair more than killing them. Spike simply loved battle for its own sake. Both as a human and as a vampire, Spike demonstrates an all-consuming, obsessive love, first for his mother, then for Drusilla, and finally for Buffy. He will often pursue his love object to the point of near self-destruction.

* Anne, William's devoted mother, feared William was too attached to her but could not bring herself to the cruelty of saying so. As a vampire she has no such compunctions, and taunts William with the insinuation of Oedipal deviancy. ("Lies My Parents Told Me")

* Sam Lawson: Sam Lawson's need to serve a higher purpose, to be guided by a cause giving sense to his actions, haunted him into his unlife. He found himself completely incapable of obtaining pleasure from killing or torturing. While Lawson believes this was caused by being sired by a vampire with a soul, Angel believes Lawson merely lacked a mission, a cause to live for.

The Red Triangle Circus is fictional circus gang first featured in the 1992 film Batman Returns. Formerly a traveling circus act, the Red Triangle were a street gang who served as the Penguin's henchmen. Most of the members of the gang were clowns.

Role in Batman Returns
The Red Triangle first appears at Gotham City's annual Christmas treelighting ceremony. They in the process, interrupt a speech being delivered by the ambitious but ruthless business tycoon Max Shreck. Although Batman is summoned and is able to restore order, Shreck is kidnapped amidst the chaos and is brought to their leader, a short, deformed man known as "The Penguin". When the Penguin (or his given name, Oswald Cobblepot) was a child, his wealthy parents (whose hatred for their child was kept from the comics) tried to get rid of their son. However, the Cobblepot child survived and, after floating down Gotham's sewers and under the city zoo, he was taken in by a group of penguins and, eventually, joined a circus freak show (otherwise known as "The Red Triangle Circus Gang").

In the midst of the Red Triangle wreaking havoc at the treelighting ceremony (and their initial battle with Batman), their leader managed to become a hero to Gotham City when he rescued the mayor's infant son from a member of the gang (who, of course, was working for the Penguin all along). This was all a scheme by Max Shreck to present the freakish criminal as a sympathetic public hero and back his run for mayor, thus installing a mayor who would allow him to build his power plant. The next time the gang appears, Batman finds himself also fighting a costumed vigilante going by the name "Catwoman" (who's in reality, Max Shreck's once timid secretary, Selina Kyle now seeking revenge against Shreck) for whom, the Penguin had unrequited lust for.

Their third appearance occurs when they help the Penguin kidnap and kill the firstborn sons of Gotham's most prominent families. This "secret plan" was all in a twisted act of revenge against what was done to him. This all came about after his campaign to recall the current mayor was quickly destroyed when Bruce Wayne played selected comments he stated while controlling the Batmobile. He was recorded insulting the people of Gotham, and this audio was played over the sound system at a rally. Eventually, Bruce as Batman, attacks Penguin's Red Triangle Circus goons, and puts a stop to the kidnappings.

Members
*Penguin/Oswald Cobblepot (Danny DeVito)
*Organ Grinder (Vincent Schiavelli)
*Sword Swallower (John Strong)
*Tattooed Strongman (Rick Zumwalt)
*Poodle Lady (Anna Katarina)
*Acrobat Thug One (Gregory Scott Cummins)
*Knifethrower Dame (Erika Andersch)
*Fat Clown (Travis McKenna)
*Thin Clown (Doug Jones)
*Terrifying Clown #1 (Branscombe Richmond)
*Terrifying Clown #2 (Anthony De Longis)

Additional notes
*One of the Red Triangle Circus Gang clowns in Batman Returns has a time bomb attached to himself, but it is removed and later used by Batman before it detonates.

Trivia

*During the scene where Penguin's henchmen are wrecking a shop, there is a reprise of the "Making Christmas" theme from The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), which Danny Elfman also composed.