Terry Davis / TempleOS

About

Terry A. Davis was a computer programmer known for being the sole developer of the TempleOS operating system. Having been diagnosed with schizophrenia, Davis gained much online notoriety for his bizarre behavior, which included using random text generators to communicate in online discussion forums, casual use of racial slurs, and paranoia and hostility to government agents, especially the CIA. In 2018, Davis was killed after being struck by a train while walking alongside railroad tracks.

History

TempleOS

In 2003, Davis began developing TempleOS as "J Operating system." The name was subsequently changed to "LoseThOS" and "SparrowOS" before becoming "TempleOS." The operating system used an original programming language, editor, compiler and kernel all designed by Davis, which included over 100,000 lines of original code. Davis claims much of the operating system's development was dictated by God, even claiming that the OS was meant to be God's third temple.

Vlogs

Davis uploaded numerous vlogs and held regularly livestreams on YouTube. After the channels were removed, an archive of his videos was created by the Terry Davis Archive channel (shown below).

Reception

On January 29th, 2013, a thread about Davis was created on Kiwi Farms.^[2]

On November 25th, 2014, the Vice tech news site Motherboard^[1] published an interview with Davis titled "God's Lonely Programmer." In the interview, Davis claimed he gave up being an atheist after speaking with God, describing himself as "basically like an atheist God has talked to." On June 8th, 2015, the programming blog Codersnotes^[4] published a post titled "A Constructive Look At TempleOS."

On May 14th, 2017, YouTuber Mister Metokur uploaded an episode of his series Internet Insanity about Davis (re-upload shown below). Over the next two years, the video gathered upwards of 720,000 views and 3,300 comments.

On December 22nd, 2018, YouTuber Fredrik Knudsen uploaded a mini-documentary about Davis and TempleOS titled "TempleOS | Down the Rabbit Hole" (shown below). Within 48 hours, the video accumulated upwards of 437,000 views and 7,200 comments.

The following day, a picture of an elephant Davis created in TempleOS was submitted to /r/surrealmemes,^[3] where it gathered mroe than 9,400 points (95% upvoted) and 240 comments (shown below).

Personal Life

Davis was born on December 15th, 1969, in West Allis, Wisconsin. Davis was the son of an industrial engineer and had seven siblings. Davis experienced his first manic episodes along with hallucinations of space aliens and government agents in 1996. After being diagnosed with bipolar disorder, Davis was diagnosed with schizophrenia and was declared unfit for employment. From then on until recent years, he would live with his parents, before being kicked out due to assaulting his father, and living out from his van.

Death

On August 11th, 2018, Davis was killed at the age of 48 after being struck by a train while walking near railroad tracks in The Dalles, Oregon. Authorities were unable to determine if Davis had intended to be struck.

Search Interest

External References