TempleOS creator seems to have passed away

By admin On Sep 7, 2018

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Terrence Andrew Davis is probably dead. He spent more than ten years working on TempleOS, a self-written operating system that he said was commissioned by God. Davis had a diagnosis of schizophrenia. He would have been 48 years old.

Terry Davis is said to have died in a train accident, something the Dalles police seem to confirm in an email. His death is confirmed on the TempleOS site and family members are also reported to have indicated on Facebook that he has died. There is no conclusive evidence and there are doubts because Davis has been the target of hoaxes in the past, including by 4chan members.

Davis was a controversial figure on the internet for his inimitable discussions, mostly about his beliefs, which led to bans on Reddit, Hacker News and other platforms.

Although his utterances, and sometimes tirades, provoked resistance, some pointed to Davis’s mental state. He had a master’s degree in electrical engineering and was working as a programmer when he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1996 and later with schizophrenia. He claimed to be able to communicate with God and began working on TempleOS on his behalf in 2003.

TempleOS is developed in a Davis-developed variant of C and C++ called HolyC. According to the developer, God told him that the resolution should be 640×480 pixels with sixteen colors. The x86-64 software runs on the smallest possible PC hardware and has no memory protection. When analyzing the software, CodersNotes refers to a comment by Davis that it’s nice to be able to reach everything, which reminded him of his childhood with the Commodore 64.

Many references to the Bible can be found within TempleOS, such as the RedSea file system and the AfterEgypt oracle. According to CodersNotes, the software can be criticized a lot, but there are many interesting ideas in it and it is overwhelming to see the demos, games, graphing calculators, debuggers and compilers.

In 2014 Motherboard published the article God’s Lonely Programmer about Terry Davis.