As solely made by Terrence Andrew Davis (1969-12-15
to 2018-08-11; Q22708720
on Wikidata), a man as genuinely talented as
he was deeply troubled, TempleOS (formerly J
Operating System, SparrowOS, and
LoseThos; Q19961543
on Wikidata) was the name of a Public Domain
operating system that is littered with Biblical references and, as David
believed, God Himself wanted him to build - an OS partly designed by
God. Some of the strange destine choices that God asked Davis to do with
the system's features were that the screen resolution should be in
640x480, with a 16-color display, and single audio voice - all of witch
were more than outdated by 2005, let along in 2017.
Other odd things about the OS was that it was unable to talk to other computers, printers, and even unable to connect to the Internet, however, it could be said that the lack of networking was a smart move by Terry, as the OS has no security features at all, such as not having even basic things like there not being any passwords or file permissions, but this didn't matter to David at all, as it was possible to instead talk to the Almighty God via the system, or be it thanks to a random text generator that David called an upgraded Ouija board. In reality, this was simply a random sentence generator that Davis constructed meaning from.
Humorously, the OS was written in a version of the C language that Davis made, named HolyC. TempleOS included an original compiler, kernel, flight simulator, and other original games. It was also possible for people to embed 3D models inside of source code comments, something unheard of in many, many mainstream computers.
As stated, its creator was Terry A. David, an American programmer, who created and designed the operating system. As a teenager, he learned the assembly language on a Commodore 64, soon earning himself a master's degree in electrical engineering from Arizona State University and working for several years at Ticketmaster as a programmer for VAX machines. Sadly, it could be said that the downfall of Terry began in 1996, when he began experiencing regular manic episodes, one of which led him to hospitalization. He was initially incorrectly diagnosed with bipolar disorder, then being corrected to having schizophrenia.
After this, he lived in Las Vegas with his parents, eventually being kicked out due to him no longer wanting to take his medication and his fits of anger, shouting at them. Davis would also be known for going on rants on his livestreams, spouting about the C.I.A., Black people, the I.R.A., and God. Now living on the streets, Davis lived off donations from his fans and his disability money, suffering more and more from disillusionment with himself, thinking that he was married to a woman called Diana. On 2018-08-11, while walking alongside railroad tracks in The Dalles, Oregon, Davis was struck and killed by an oncoming train. While investigators could not determine if his death was accidental or suicide, the train engineer believed his death to be a suicide. In the police report, it was noted that Davis was walking with his back to the train, turning around moments before he was hit.
When The Dalles Chronicle covered the story that an unnamed homeless person was hit by a train, the newspaper was hit by a large number of phone calls, asking if it was indeed David, being confirmed in a later piece.
Despite of his death, the work of Terry lives on in the form of forks of his work, such as with Shrine and Erythros, two projects that can only exist thanks to the original project being Public Domain.
When he was alive, Terry would have rants about taboo topics and dissensions of himself. People shouldn't judge him for these things but rather realise that he was unable to control himself. In the end, Terry died homeless; his story should be a warning about the issues of mental health and what we do with the people who suffer from them in our modern-day world.
This page was last edited on 2026-09-09 02:59:15.
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Let there be peace on Earth.