OSes TempleOS - a one-man operating system

Second Summer

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
Apr 26, 2012
Reaction score
8,595
Location
Oxfordshire, UK
Lifestyle
  1. Vegan
I just came across an article talking about this OS, and must say I'm fascinated by the story behind it and the man who built it.

The system was characterized as a modern x86-64 Commodore 64, using an interface similar to a mixture of DOS and Turbo C. Davis proclaimed that the system's features, such as its 640x480 resolution, 16-color display and single audio voice, were explicitly instructed to him by God.[1] It was programmed with an original variation of C (named HolyC) in place of BASIC, and included an original flight simulator, compiler and kernel.
Source:

Terry A. Davis, the developer, unfortunately died in 2018 when he was run over by a train.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Urban Gardener
Very cool...and very very sad. I had a very close friend with bipolar who suffered for years, being misdiagnosed, until she was finally prescribed lithium.

"TempleOS is a testament to the dedication and passion of one man displaying his technological prowess. It doesn't need to be anything more."[6]OSNews editor Kroc Kamen wrote that the OS "shows that computing can still be a hobby; why is everybody so serious these days? If I want to code an OS that uses interpretive dance as the input method, I should be allowed to do so, companies like Apple be damned."

“After Davis' death, OSNews editor Thom Holwerda wrote: "Davis was clearly a gifted programmer – writing an entire operating system is no small feat – and it was sad to see him affected by his mental illness".[13] One fan described Davis as a "programming legend", while another, a computer engineer, compared the development of TempleOS to a one-man-built skyscraper.[2] The engineer had previously spoken to Davis at length and believed that Davis could have been a "Steve Jobs" or a "Steve Wozniak" were it not for his illness.[4] He added that it "actually boggles my mind that one man wrote all that" and that it was "hard for a lay person to understand what a phenomenal achievement" it is to write an entire operating system alone.[2] Another computer engineer said that TempleOS contained innovations that no other developer had accomplished, particularly that it runs on a certain part of a computer processor to maintain its "extremely quick" speed.[2]
 
  • Sad
Reactions: Val
I was going to say that from a more technical perspective it's sad that after Davis' death, the OS has probably died with him. As it was a one-man project, developed for over a decade, with probably hundreds of thousands or even millions of lines of code, it will be very hard for anyone else to take over the development. Equally will it be hard to find anyone who shares Davis' vision.

But apparently someone is trying!

This is the good thing about Open Source software.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Val