Terry Davis may not be as well-known as Linus Torvalds, but his open source operating system may be a legacy that will live on forever. What is it, and how do you use it?
I honestly never expected something like TempleOS and Terry Davis to make its way onto a popular YouTube channel like Linus Tech Tips (and OSNews even makes a small cameo). Linus and Anthony do a good job of providing an overview of TempleOS and its creator.
Davis used to frequent OSNews, even during the harsher spells of his illness, and it wasn’t easy to deal with someone like him, even in a small community like OSNews. He didn’t just post religious ramblings, but also deeply racist ramblings. It’s sad that, like so many others, he wasn’t able to get the medical help he clearly needed.
That was uniquely fascinating!
I obviously don’t know the entire story of his life. But it seemed his parents at some point just either couldn’t handle him anymore, or didn’t want to and finally kicked him out instead of understanding that he needed help to get better.
His homelessness really led him down an either darker path, and ultimately he was struck by a train, and I don’t think anyone knows if it was suicide or accident. Either way, if he had someone that would have taken him in and got the support that he needed, he likely could have still remained a genius programmer. They have gotten more, and better medications for schizophrenia in recent years, that don’t turn you into as much of a zombie. While still leveling out the hold on reality.
Really a sad story, but would be cool to see TempleOS be supported by some ports of old DOS games or something.
Though if I recall, it ONLY supported 640×480@16 colors, and I think most DOS games ran in 320×200@256. I would have to look again at that. Still all those capabilities and written by a single guy. Really tragic to see all that talent turn to crazy and tragedy.
leech,
Ironically I think his eccentric condition is the main reason people remember him and talk about his work. “Normal” people are less memorable and aren’t considered newsworthy. It’s sad to think about, but I think there’s probably a lot more people who were on osnews that passed away too, yet we will never learn about it.
“Ironically I think his eccentric condition is the main reason people remember him and talk about his work.”
TempleOS is quirky enough that it might be remembered anyway, but you can’t separate that it is a manifestation of his condition. Without it, TempleOS would be an entirely different thing, if it ever existed at all.
grahamtriggs,
Yeah, that’s what I mean, we latch onto things like temple os because it is eccentric like him, that is it’s claim to fame.
It takes a lot of money to get schizo support. After years of paying and not seeing improvements, the cash-cow stopped giving.
Too bad…
There *has* to be a movie, or book or TV documentary, something, made about this guy. It’s so perfect. The guy was a bona-fide capital H Hacker, he wrote his own programming language to create his own OS after all. And then, he was, well, a mental case. It’s gold, Jerry, gold.
Totally agree. Fascinating story.
TempleOS with Down the Rabbit Hole:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCgoxQCf5Jg
It was fascinating to see TempleOS in action on LTT. I’ve been intrigued by it since before the name change but, to be honest, not interested enough to give it a try myself.
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