TempleOS

[[File:TempleOS 4.05 session.png|thumb|right|165px|The rinky-dink screen: [[Goddidit|because God said so]].]]
{{christianity}}{{technav}}{{cquote|I capped the line-of-code count at 100,000 and [[God]] said it must be perfect, so it will never be an ugly monstrocity.{{sic}}|||Terry A. Davis<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20160323184352/http://www.templeos.org/ TempleOS.org] (archived 2016-03-23)</ref>}}
'''TempleOS''' is a [[Bible|biblical]]-themed [[operating system]] written by '''Terry A. Davis''' {{lived|1969|2018}}.<ref>[https://archive.is/YDl9q Man killed by train had tech following], 7 September 2018. Archived from [http://www.thedalleschronicle.com/news/2018/sep/07/man-killed-train-had-tech-following/ original] at The Dalles Chronicle.</ref><ref name="VICE">[http://motherboard.vice.com/read/gods-lonely-programmer God's Lonely Programmer:Terry Davis, a schizophrenic programmer, has spent 10 years building an operating system to talk to God.] by Jesse Hicks (Nov 25 2014, 7:00am) ''Vice Motherboard''.</ref>

Davis was a [[I used to be an atheist|former]] [[atheist]] who, after being hospitalized for [[Schizophrenia|mental health issues]], claimed to [[Prophet|communicate with God]] and said he had heard him tell him to develop TempleOS. The OS was, according to Davis, built for "God's Third Temple".<ref name="VICE"/> He was apparently told in these communications to create the OS with 16 colors and mono sound. It also has no [[Internet|network]] capability, and — get this — a dialect of [[wp:C (programming language)|C]] called "HolyC", or C†. According to him, he could communicate with [[God]] through a TempleOS program called "AfterEgypt", but no one else so far has succeeded at this. So basically, this is an OS developed by a schizophrenic that is stuck in 1990 for video and sound (despite being finished in 2003 and 64-bit).<ref name="VICE"/> Fortunately, TempleOS is [[open source]] (it's [[public domain]] as well), so as a mildly interesting programming project, it's not all bad, and to be fair, programming an entire OS on one's own is an impressive feat; consequently, he ended up developing a large following among the [[hacker]] community.<ref name="tech_Temp">[http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/software-engineer/templeos-an-educational-tool-for-programming-experiments TempleOS: an educational tool for programming experiments: James Sanders explores what drives one man to write an operating system for x86_64, and what the programmer's finished product looks like.] by James Sanders (January 20, 2014, 11:33 PM PST) ''TechRepublic''.</ref>

Davis was a rather confrontational individual, and was in the habit of calling people certain racial epithets,<ref name="VICE">[http://motherboard.vice.com/read/gods-lonely-programmer God's Lonely Programmer:Terry Davis, a schizophrenic programmer, has spent 10 years building an operating system to talk to God.] by Jesse Hicks (Nov 25 2014, 7:00am) ''Vice Motherboard''.</ref> notably referring to "[[CIA]] [[nigger]]s", whom Davis claimed to have killed with his [[car]].<ref name="256kb_Temp">[https://www.256kilobytes.com/content/show/1939/biography-of-terry-a-davis-the-greatest-programmer-to-ever-live Biography of Terry A. Davis — The greatest programmer to ever live.] (January 03, 2019, 09:19 PM PST) ''256Kilobytes''.</ref> Davis believed that media organizations were calling him "nigger" as part of a psychological torture campaign, and adopted the epithet as a way of showing he was not bothered by his torturers' tactics.<ref name=TempleOS>[https://web.archive.org/web/20160525010927/http://www.templeos.org/Wb/Home/Web/TAD/Racism.html Racism and use of the word "Nigger"]</ref> Davis was known to frequent forums, including [[4chan]], in an attempt to get people to use his operating system, and often got into confrontations with users who had no interest. His use of epithets and wild behavior increased towards the end of his life likely as a result of his [[schizophrenia]] getting egged on by 4chan users, who were an early group to develop a following for TempleOS and are no strangers to using racial slurs. 

In early 2018, he was kicked out of his parents' house, ''possibly'' because his crazy had reached the point where he was shouting/screaming at his parents in their own living room.  He then moved in with his sister, before choosing to live in a van and moving across the US. Although fans of Davis offered support and supplies, he rejected any housing offers. During this period his mental illness worsened to the point he believed he was married to a Youtuber called PhysicsGirl. On August 11th 2018, he uploaded a video, stating he'd removed most of his other videos because he "did not want to litter the internet". In his last video he stated jokingly: "It's good to be king. Wait, maybe. I think maybe I'm just like a little bizarre little person who walks back and forth. Whatever, you know, but...". 

Later that day, Davis walked in front of an oncoming train and [[death|died]] from the impact. Although investigators could not conclude if it was [[suicide]], the train engineer believed it to be the case. His death was met with some sadness in the hacker community — it's all too common for a hacker to have their life's work go largely unnoticed, and possibly ridiculed, so the empathy was unusual.<ref>[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17912618 Terry Davis has died: Hacker News thread]</ref>

Davis's story is a cautionary tale about living with mental illness and the ways certain groups on the internet can choose to feed into and exploit this for entertainment.

==Quotes==
*"I was chosen by God because I am the best programmer on the planet and [[Goddidit|God boosted my]] [[IQ]] with [[Magic|divine intellect]]."<ref>[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10061171 Comment from Terry Davis on a Hacker News thread]</ref>
*"God said 640x480 16 color was a covenant like [[circumcision]]."<ref>[https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2pdi10/new_subreddit_for_templeos_everybody_welcome_to/ Comment from Terry Davis on /r/Programming]</ref>
*"God doesn't care about public opinion, does not give a fuck what the little shits think. Beatings will continue until morale imporves {{sic}}."<ref name="Aug52014WBM"/>
*"I like fabulous [[gold]] churches in poor countries. Priorities are like [[Middle Ages|Middle Age]] Europe. That's what we need in America."<ref name="Mar282016WBM"/>
*"The CIA niggers glow in the dark, you can see em' if you're driving, you just run them over. That's what you do."<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp921drrADQ Comment from Terry Davis on YouTube]</ref>
*"The CIA has a 7-year-old deepthroating a loaded 45 at DMV next to me fucking with me. I'll teach him to pull the trigger."<ref name="Aug52014WBM">(August 5, 2014). [https://web.archive.org/web/20140805055120/https://twitter.com/templeos Terry A. Davis]. ''Twitter'', via the Wayback Machine.</ref>
*"I killed a CIA nigger by running him over on 9/9/99. I was being followed by agents and freaked out. It's okay to run-over [[space aliens]]."<ref name="Mar282016WBM">(March 28, 2016). [https://web.archive.org/web/20160328073437/https://twitter.com/TempleOS Terry A. Davis]. ''Twitter'', via the Wayback Machine.</ref>

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:Terry A. Davis 1982.jpg|Davis in ~1986
File:Terry Davis 1990.jpg|Davis, apparently at his graduation in 1990
File:Terry Davis cat.png|Davis in the 1990s
File:Terry's Bill.jpg|Davis, pre-1995
File:Terry Davis 2000.jpg|Davis in 2000
File:Terry A. Davis 2017.jpg|Davis in 2017
File:Terry Davis car.jpg|Davis in a car, 2017
File:Terry A. Davis in front of Richland WA library.jpg|Davis in 2018
File:TempleOS logo.png|The TempleOS logo
</gallery>

==See also==
*[[Argument by gibberish]]
*[[Francis E. Dec]]

==External links==
* {{wpa|TempleOS}}
* [http://www.codersnotes.com/notes/a-constructive-look-at-templeos/ A constructive look at TempleOS]
* [https://archive.org/details/TerryADavis_TempleOS_Archive TempleOS Archive]
* [https://www.d3vur.com/product-category/templeos-collection/ Merch collection dedicated to TempleOS]
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCgoxQCf5Jg TempleOS | Down the Rabbit Hole], a documentary made by Fredrik Knudsen.

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

__NOTOC__
[[Category:Christians]]
[[Category:Internet]]
[[Category:Racism]]
[[Category:Technology]]
[[Category:We're on a mission from God]]
[[Category:Operating systems]]

Categories: Christians, Internet, Racism, Technology, We're on a mission from God, Operating systems