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Today marks 4th death anniversary of Terry Davis, the sole developer of TempleOS operating system
Terrence Andrew Davis, born December 15, 1969, was an American programmer who created and designed TempleOS, a public domain operating system. Its development was an extremely complex, time-consuming and unusual undertaking for one person.
In 1996, he began experiencing regular manic episodes, one of which led him to hospitalization. Initially diagnosed with bipolar disorder, he was later declared to have schizophrenia. He subsequently collected disability payments and resided in Las Vegas with his parents until 2017.
Davis grew up as a Catholic and was an atheist for some of his adult life. After experiencing a self-described "revelation", he proclaimed that he had been in direct communication with God and that God had commanded him to build a successor to the Second Temple. He then committed a decade to creating an operating system modeled after the DOS-based interfaces of his youth. In 2013, Davis announced that he had completed the project, now called "TempleOS". The operating system was generally regarded as a hobby system, not suitable for general use, but Davis received sympathy and support for bringing the project to fruition.
During his final years, Davis amassed an online following and regularly posted video blogs to social media. Although he remained lucid when discussing computer-related subjects, his communication skills were significantly affected by his schizophrenia. He was controversial for his regular use of slurs, which he explained was his way of combating actors of psychological warfare. After 2017, he struggled with periods of homelessness and incarceration. In 2018, he was struck by a train and died at the age of 48. Investigators could not determine whether his death was suicide or accidental.
What’s reality? I don’t know. When my bird was looking at my computer monitor I thought, ‘That bird has no idea what he’s looking at.’ And yet what does the bird do? Does he panic? No, he can’t really panic, he just does the best he can. Is he able to live in a world where he’s so ignorant? Well, he doesn’t really have a choice. The bird is okay even though he doesn’t understand the world. You’re that bird looking at the monitor, and you’re thinking to yourself, ‘I can figure this out.’ Maybe you have some bird ideas. Maybe that’s the best you can do.
R.I.P.
Comments
It's really amazing to see how a single person could build fully working OS, from scratch!
RIP Terry Davis
glowies btfo