- Joined
- Feb 3, 2013
- Highlight
- #1
(Old OP was shit, and was replaced with the much better version provided by @CIA Nigger )
Recently MisterMetokur made a video on
Terry A Davis and due to this I decided to quit lurking and make a better introduction post for this thread.
Terry A Davis is a somewhat infamous figure in various programming communities and tech imageboards such as 4chan’s /g/. He is a 48 year old jobless, schizophrenic programmer most notable for creating his own operating system, TempleOS, a bizarre 64 bit operating system designed to both bring back Commodore 64 style programming, and for talking to God.
He lives with his parents and his income consists of
checks, which he spends on Shasta (a cheap dollar store soda), microwave food, and sometimes parts for his computer, which features a 24 thread Xeon with 128GB of RAM. He lives 48 hour days, staying awake for 32 hours and sleeping 16 hours a day. In the years since he discovered the internet, Terry has lived an interesting life coding, arguing with naysayers online, and running over CIA niggers with his car while battling CIA child sex agents.
TempleOS itself
Terry is a man with a mission from God himself, to build his third temple as a computer operating system known as TempleOS, and to spread the word about it.
TempleOS is somewhat unique, even among hobbyist operating systems. It’s not based on another operating system from the past, nor does it follow modern operating system design conventions. However what has brought TempleOS attention outside the programming community is how it feels like an operating system designed by some creepy old fundamentalist Christian.
Terry’s goal for TempleOS was to be both an operating system that was a throwback to the Commodore 64 days of programming and as the temple for God himself. TempleOS features all code running in Ring 0 (in other words directly on the hardware itself), 640x480 video resolution with only beeper support (because that’s what God told Terry), and support for only basic PC features such as IDE and PS/2, not USB or SATA. It’s also only a few megabytes big and features a compiler written by Terry himself.
It also features some unique features such as the ability to paste in bible verses along with a copy of the complete bible, a modified version of ASCII with the ability to post links, graphics (in 2d or 3d), and trees, a dialect of C called HolyC that is interpreted, his own file system called RedSea, and it’s random number generator that would pull random words from a dictionary. Terry uses this random generator to talk to his God, who “speaks” to him with random words.
If anything, TempleOS is a half-decent experimental OS. Sure it’s definitely not usable for day to day usage, and the 640x480 screen resolution does not help it one bit, but it does feature unique features such as a C interpreter or how it handles ASCII.
While his operating system might be what got him attention, the rabbit hole runs much, much deeper. See, Terry A Davis has a long history of posting over the top ramblings to the internet dating back to the mid 2000s, and he continues this to this day.
Epilogue
Terry A Davis is an interesting figure on programming sites and it's easy to see why. Terry is a talented programmer who managed to write his own OS and compiler from scratch despite suffering from schizophrenia. At the same time however his mental illness clearly overshadows everything else he's done, and it's given him a fairly unique image even when compared to other eccentrics in the programming community.
Terry archive: https://archive.org/download/TerryADavis_TempleOS_Archive/videos/
Recently MisterMetokur made a video on
Terry A Davis and due to this I decided to quit lurking and make a better introduction post for this thread.
Terry A Davis is a somewhat infamous figure in various programming communities and tech imageboards such as 4chan’s /g/. He is a 48 year old jobless, schizophrenic programmer most notable for creating his own operating system, TempleOS, a bizarre 64 bit operating system designed to both bring back Commodore 64 style programming, and for talking to God.
He lives with his parents and his income consists of
checks, which he spends on Shasta (a cheap dollar store soda), microwave food, and sometimes parts for his computer, which features a 24 thread Xeon with 128GB of RAM. He lives 48 hour days, staying awake for 32 hours and sleeping 16 hours a day. In the years since he discovered the internet, Terry has lived an interesting life coding, arguing with naysayers online, and running over CIA niggers with his car while battling CIA child sex agents.TempleOS itself
TempleOS is somewhat unique, even among hobbyist operating systems. It’s not based on another operating system from the past, nor does it follow modern operating system design conventions. However what has brought TempleOS attention outside the programming community is how it feels like an operating system designed by some creepy old fundamentalist Christian.
Terry’s goal for TempleOS was to be both an operating system that was a throwback to the Commodore 64 days of programming and as the temple for God himself. TempleOS features all code running in Ring 0 (in other words directly on the hardware itself), 640x480 video resolution with only beeper support (because that’s what God told Terry), and support for only basic PC features such as IDE and PS/2, not USB or SATA. It’s also only a few megabytes big and features a compiler written by Terry himself.
It also features some unique features such as the ability to paste in bible verses along with a copy of the complete bible, a modified version of ASCII with the ability to post links, graphics (in 2d or 3d), and trees, a dialect of C called HolyC that is interpreted, his own file system called RedSea, and it’s random number generator that would pull random words from a dictionary. Terry uses this random generator to talk to his God, who “speaks” to him with random words.
If anything, TempleOS is a half-decent experimental OS. Sure it’s definitely not usable for day to day usage, and the 640x480 screen resolution does not help it one bit, but it does feature unique features such as a C interpreter or how it handles ASCII.
While his operating system might be what got him attention, the rabbit hole runs much, much deeper. See, Terry A Davis has a long history of posting over the top ramblings to the internet dating back to the mid 2000s, and he continues this to this day.
Terry’s Internet Postings
Terry is perhaps even more famous for his internet postings on tech websites such as HackerNews or social media than he is his operating system. They’re famous for featuring several common themes, including shamelessly promoting his own operating system, threats towards the CIA, declaring that him and God have higher power over the government, bragging about his experience working with TicketMaster, random output from his random word generator that he calls “words from God”, and last but not least, over the top racism. Just about every single detractor he will call a “nigger”, and he has special hatred for CIA niggers, MIT niggers, and “nigger cattle”.
He also likes to blame the CIA whenever he runs into computer problems, either when he runs into problems with software, or when hardware fails
This doesn’t just happen in comment sections however, as he has his own personal website. While his website focuses on programming for the most part, on his website he does have quite a few insane ramblings and demands for computer companies.
Terry’s own guidelines for the OS declare the OS “God’s official temple”, while also banning third party libraries, multimedia, death screams, hooks for future changes, and versions for non AMD64 computers. Other pages in his site also specifically ban gore and sex from TempleOS, and involve him ranting about the CIA.
Terry also has a list of demands for hardware and software companies including TempleOS in the ROM of every computer, ditching Secure Boot to allow TempleOS to dual boot, and support for Terry’s own RedSea file system in Windows and Linux, which he plans to make them carry out via talking with God himself.
Terry has also come up with his own idea for a computer, called the “Standard TempleOS PC”, that does away with USB in favor of serial, only displays 640x480 with 16 colors and 4k, costs $8k, is cryogenically-cooled, and will sell 400 million units and will pay off the national debt with the profit from it.
Terry the YouTuber
Just like many Skitzocows, Terry uploads videos to YouTube all the time.
Initially he used his channel to upload videos either talking about his OS or criticizing companies like Intel, however in March 2016 he discovered how to YouTube stream. His streams for the most part sucked, with long periods of silence, programming, and staring at his computer screen like he was Doomguy mixed in between him watching copyrighted YouTube videos (that resulted in many stream recordings being pulled) and some crazy moments, such as prank callers and him going on over the top rants on stream.
A few months ago he got his streaming ability revoked on multiple YouTube accounts (and I think Hitbox as well) thanks to weens emailing him pornographic images that he would open up on stream. While people initially complained, this might have been a blessing in disguise as he’s decided to start vlogging now, filming his exploits in the Las Vegas neighborhood he lives in, walking around rambling to himself and sometimes with passerbys reacting. For example when someone in a truck asked him why he was filming and that time he greeted an African American man walking past him with “hey nigger”
He’s also uploaded videos interviewing his dad, eating, and showing off his room, giving more insight into his life. He’s also been lusting over a girl on YouTube with 640k subscribers, Physics Girl AKA Dianna Cowern, which has led trolls to make fake email accounts posing as her to try to catfish him.
Recently he’s also started doing cover versions of songs as well, featuring him banging the table with his fists and sometimes singing.
While Terry might seem like an elaborate troll or performance artist based on the content of his posts, he’s genuine, and his life is an interesting (and somewhat depressing) story.
Terry is perhaps even more famous for his internet postings on tech websites such as HackerNews or social media than he is his operating system. They’re famous for featuring several common themes, including shamelessly promoting his own operating system, threats towards the CIA, declaring that him and God have higher power over the government, bragging about his experience working with TicketMaster, random output from his random word generator that he calls “words from God”, and last but not least, over the top racism. Just about every single detractor he will call a “nigger”, and he has special hatred for CIA niggers, MIT niggers, and “nigger cattle”.
He also likes to blame the CIA whenever he runs into computer problems, either when he runs into problems with software, or when hardware fails
This doesn’t just happen in comment sections however, as he has his own personal website. While his website focuses on programming for the most part, on his website he does have quite a few insane ramblings and demands for computer companies.
Terry’s own guidelines for the OS declare the OS “God’s official temple”, while also banning third party libraries, multimedia, death screams, hooks for future changes, and versions for non AMD64 computers. Other pages in his site also specifically ban gore and sex from TempleOS, and involve him ranting about the CIA.
Terry also has a list of demands for hardware and software companies including TempleOS in the ROM of every computer, ditching Secure Boot to allow TempleOS to dual boot, and support for Terry’s own RedSea file system in Windows and Linux, which he plans to make them carry out via talking with God himself.
Terry has also come up with his own idea for a computer, called the “Standard TempleOS PC”, that does away with USB in favor of serial, only displays 640x480 with 16 colors and 4k, costs $8k, is cryogenically-cooled, and will sell 400 million units and will pay off the national debt with the profit from it.
Terry the YouTuber
Just like many Skitzocows, Terry uploads videos to YouTube all the time.
Initially he used his channel to upload videos either talking about his OS or criticizing companies like Intel, however in March 2016 he discovered how to YouTube stream. His streams for the most part sucked, with long periods of silence, programming, and staring at his computer screen like he was Doomguy mixed in between him watching copyrighted YouTube videos (that resulted in many stream recordings being pulled) and some crazy moments, such as prank callers and him going on over the top rants on stream.
A few months ago he got his streaming ability revoked on multiple YouTube accounts (and I think Hitbox as well) thanks to weens emailing him pornographic images that he would open up on stream. While people initially complained, this might have been a blessing in disguise as he’s decided to start vlogging now, filming his exploits in the Las Vegas neighborhood he lives in, walking around rambling to himself and sometimes with passerbys reacting. For example when someone in a truck asked him why he was filming and that time he greeted an African American man walking past him with “hey nigger”
He’s also uploaded videos interviewing his dad, eating, and showing off his room, giving more insight into his life. He’s also been lusting over a girl on YouTube with 640k subscribers, Physics Girl AKA Dianna Cowern, which has led trolls to make fake email accounts posing as her to try to catfish him.
Recently he’s also started doing cover versions of songs as well, featuring him banging the table with his fists and sometimes singing.
While Terry might seem like an elaborate troll or performance artist based on the content of his posts, he’s genuine, and his life is an interesting (and somewhat depressing) story.
Life before TempleOS, 1969-2003
Terry A Davis was born in December 1969. His dad was an industrial engineer who worked on US Navy aircraft. He ended up getting into the gifted class at elementary school and learning coding, first on an Apple II and later on a Commodore 64, and continued to program throughout high school.
Later on he claimed during this time period his brother put his dick in a vacuum, another brother got him high on gas fumes and they sucked each other’s dicks, he stuck his crotch in the hot tub drain because it “kind of sucked”, and he tried to get his dog to lick his nuts.
In 1990 as an undergraduate he got a job at Ticketmaster writing operating systems for the VAX computer until 1996, an experience he brings up a lot when talking about his OS. He graduated from Arizona State University in 1994. At some point he ended up becoming an atheist after being born Catholic. However in 1996, that’s when he really started to lose it.
That’s when he started to “see” strange people following him around in suits monitoring him, and connected it to crazy ideas he had that he believed the government would want him dead for. He left town in his car, driving to the middle of nowhere and believing god was talking to him through the radio as he ended up in Marfa Texas, where he ditched his car his parents gave him, tore off all the side panels looking for tracking devices, and threw the keys in a desert. After being taken into police custody he broke his collarbone jumping out of the police car.
After hearing about artifacts in his X-Ray scans, he thought that aliens were planting artifacts inside him and he escaped, trying to steal a pickup truck. In jail he tried to break out by sticking his glasses in the electrical socket to trip the breaker, only to find out his frames weren’t conductive. He ended up in a mental hospital, refusing to eat the food thinking it was drugged and smashing windows.
He donated all his belongings after being released in an attempt to emulate Jesus (who he had by now started to worship again), and lived at first in his car driving nowhere, and later on the streets.
By July 1996, his mental state recovered enough to focus on other endeavors. He lived on credit cards for the next year, trying to build his own early 3d printer like device, a 3 axis stepper motor driven milling machine, giving up on the idea after his apartment nearly got set on fire by an errant Dremel tool.
From 1997-1999, he worked with Xytec Corp. making FPGA based image processing equipment, from 2000-2001 he wrote a Windows physics simulator called SimStructure which he claims “back in 2000 was impressive but now they have Grand Theft Auto and stuff”. His last job was working at Graphic Technologies from 2001-2002 making replacement chips for refilling “chipped” toner cartridges.
At some time during this he moved in with his parents, as he tried to write a sequel to George Orwell’s 1984 that he never finished. He also claims to have jerked off to fantasies of his niece Lani, played tag with a 7 year old who reached for his crotch, and fantasized about leading a catholic army of Mexicans and Brazilians, which he thinks was dumb because they’re “niggers”.
However, perhaps his boldest claim from this time period of his life was his run in with the “CIA Niggers”. On September 9th, 1999, he claimed to have run over a CIA nigger with his car and then licking the windshield after he was killed, scoring one for the good guys. This “incident” in particular would become somewhat of a meme among communities following him.
The early days of TempleOS, 2003-2013
In 2003, with the first 64 bit x86 compatible CPUs hitting the market, Terry saw it as the next big thing to change computers. He quickly dusted off some old code from his Ticketmaster days and went to work on his life’s work, TempleOS. Terry initially used quite a few different names for it including the J Operating System, SparrowOS, and LoseThos.
As Terry developed this OS however, he started to gain some unwanted attention from numerous forums he posted to, as he became famous for shamelessly promoting his OS and making the same kind of insane rambling posts about every single topic that he's famous for. At least once he edited his website and filled it with rants about the CIA and talked about hitting a CIA actor with his car
Terry found himself shadowbanned from HackerNews (turn on showdead to view all his long rambling posts), and banned from sites such as Reddit, OSDev, and SomethingAwful. His operating system became the butt of many jokes on communities he posted on, with commenters split between being in shock that one man made this entire OS or at how primitive it looked, and SomethingAwful’s review was absolutely brutal.
Not all feedback of TempleOS under it’s various names during this time was negative however. MetaFilter had a post about it when it was called LoseThos with plenty of replies from Terry himself, and OS News had featured it under an even older name and later on as LoseThos.
Terry also ended up being a topic of debate within the programming community about if it is ethical to silence somebody because they’re mentally ill, and in 2012 someone wrote an article criticizing Terry’s detractors
While his OS remained relatively obscure except to those in the programming community or goons with memories of every deranged lunatic who spent $10 to post, 2013 was around the time Terry A Davis started to become noticed by people outside a relatively small community. It’s also when he gave his operating system it’s final name, TempleOS.
Discovering YouTube, 2013-now
In 2013, Terry uploaded a video to YouTube called the 64-Bit Temple Operating System, doing a tour of his operating system, which would become his most viewed video.
In 2014, Vice wrote an article on his life and TempleOS. This article pretty much summed up a lot of Terry’s life up to that point, and helped give him new fans as well.
Around this time, Terry A Davis also made a Twitter account, where he made the same kinds of posts that he usually makes on other sites. Some were rambling posts featuring words from God, however others were quite interesting. Recently he was banned from Twitter, as CEO Jack Dorsey has cracked down on any even remotely right wing leaning accounts.
This is where we end up at what he’s been doing today. Terry has mostly been using YouTube to provide an open window into his mind, similar to other skitzocows, while delivering the same quality comments that he used to deliver on sites like HackerNews.
Thanks to these videos, his OS, and the circumstances of his life, he has also gained a cult following of both trolls and people genuinely interested by his work.
His fans have produced videos compiling moments from his streams, written demos and software for TempleOS, created forks/distros of TempleOS such as Shrine, fanart of him, and even a fangame, which fittingly enough is for TempleOS.
Terry A Davis was born in December 1969. His dad was an industrial engineer who worked on US Navy aircraft. He ended up getting into the gifted class at elementary school and learning coding, first on an Apple II and later on a Commodore 64, and continued to program throughout high school.
Later on he claimed during this time period his brother put his dick in a vacuum, another brother got him high on gas fumes and they sucked each other’s dicks, he stuck his crotch in the hot tub drain because it “kind of sucked”, and he tried to get his dog to lick his nuts.
In 1990 as an undergraduate he got a job at Ticketmaster writing operating systems for the VAX computer until 1996, an experience he brings up a lot when talking about his OS. He graduated from Arizona State University in 1994. At some point he ended up becoming an atheist after being born Catholic. However in 1996, that’s when he really started to lose it.
That’s when he started to “see” strange people following him around in suits monitoring him, and connected it to crazy ideas he had that he believed the government would want him dead for. He left town in his car, driving to the middle of nowhere and believing god was talking to him through the radio as he ended up in Marfa Texas, where he ditched his car his parents gave him, tore off all the side panels looking for tracking devices, and threw the keys in a desert. After being taken into police custody he broke his collarbone jumping out of the police car.
After hearing about artifacts in his X-Ray scans, he thought that aliens were planting artifacts inside him and he escaped, trying to steal a pickup truck. In jail he tried to break out by sticking his glasses in the electrical socket to trip the breaker, only to find out his frames weren’t conductive. He ended up in a mental hospital, refusing to eat the food thinking it was drugged and smashing windows.
He donated all his belongings after being released in an attempt to emulate Jesus (who he had by now started to worship again), and lived at first in his car driving nowhere, and later on the streets.
By July 1996, his mental state recovered enough to focus on other endeavors. He lived on credit cards for the next year, trying to build his own early 3d printer like device, a 3 axis stepper motor driven milling machine, giving up on the idea after his apartment nearly got set on fire by an errant Dremel tool.
From 1997-1999, he worked with Xytec Corp. making FPGA based image processing equipment, from 2000-2001 he wrote a Windows physics simulator called SimStructure which he claims “back in 2000 was impressive but now they have Grand Theft Auto and stuff”. His last job was working at Graphic Technologies from 2001-2002 making replacement chips for refilling “chipped” toner cartridges.
At some time during this he moved in with his parents, as he tried to write a sequel to George Orwell’s 1984 that he never finished. He also claims to have jerked off to fantasies of his niece Lani, played tag with a 7 year old who reached for his crotch, and fantasized about leading a catholic army of Mexicans and Brazilians, which he thinks was dumb because they’re “niggers”.
However, perhaps his boldest claim from this time period of his life was his run in with the “CIA Niggers”. On September 9th, 1999, he claimed to have run over a CIA nigger with his car and then licking the windshield after he was killed, scoring one for the good guys. This “incident” in particular would become somewhat of a meme among communities following him.
The early days of TempleOS, 2003-2013
In 2003, with the first 64 bit x86 compatible CPUs hitting the market, Terry saw it as the next big thing to change computers. He quickly dusted off some old code from his Ticketmaster days and went to work on his life’s work, TempleOS. Terry initially used quite a few different names for it including the J Operating System, SparrowOS, and LoseThos.
As Terry developed this OS however, he started to gain some unwanted attention from numerous forums he posted to, as he became famous for shamelessly promoting his OS and making the same kind of insane rambling posts about every single topic that he's famous for. At least once he edited his website and filled it with rants about the CIA and talked about hitting a CIA actor with his car
Terry found himself shadowbanned from HackerNews (turn on showdead to view all his long rambling posts), and banned from sites such as Reddit, OSDev, and SomethingAwful. His operating system became the butt of many jokes on communities he posted on, with commenters split between being in shock that one man made this entire OS or at how primitive it looked, and SomethingAwful’s review was absolutely brutal.
Not all feedback of TempleOS under it’s various names during this time was negative however. MetaFilter had a post about it when it was called LoseThos with plenty of replies from Terry himself, and OS News had featured it under an even older name and later on as LoseThos.
Terry also ended up being a topic of debate within the programming community about if it is ethical to silence somebody because they’re mentally ill, and in 2012 someone wrote an article criticizing Terry’s detractors
While his OS remained relatively obscure except to those in the programming community or goons with memories of every deranged lunatic who spent $10 to post, 2013 was around the time Terry A Davis started to become noticed by people outside a relatively small community. It’s also when he gave his operating system it’s final name, TempleOS.
Discovering YouTube, 2013-now
In 2013, Terry uploaded a video to YouTube called the 64-Bit Temple Operating System, doing a tour of his operating system, which would become his most viewed video.
In 2014, Vice wrote an article on his life and TempleOS. This article pretty much summed up a lot of Terry’s life up to that point, and helped give him new fans as well.
Around this time, Terry A Davis also made a Twitter account, where he made the same kinds of posts that he usually makes on other sites. Some were rambling posts featuring words from God, however others were quite interesting. Recently he was banned from Twitter, as CEO Jack Dorsey has cracked down on any even remotely right wing leaning accounts.
Thanks to these videos, his OS, and the circumstances of his life, he has also gained a cult following of both trolls and people genuinely interested by his work.
His fans have produced videos compiling moments from his streams, written demos and software for TempleOS, created forks/distros of TempleOS such as Shrine, fanart of him, and even a fangame, which fittingly enough is for TempleOS.
Terry A Davis is an interesting figure on programming sites and it's easy to see why. Terry is a talented programmer who managed to write his own OS and compiler from scratch despite suffering from schizophrenia. At the same time however his mental illness clearly overshadows everything else he's done, and it's given him a fairly unique image even when compared to other eccentrics in the programming community.
Terry archive: https://archive.org/download/TerryADavis_TempleOS_Archive/videos/
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