Today marks five years since the death of TempleOS developer Terry A. Davis. Rest in peace.
Despite some impractical quirks and limitations, this strange machine, something of a cross between DOS and Oberon, remains in our hearts and computers. Who am I to criticize God for his OS design?
Let’s pay our respects to a man who achieved inspiring things despite his severe illness and remember how his life was cut short in no small part by internet bullies and a capitalist system that failed him.
I hope this doesn’t need to be said but I don’t want to see anyone emulating Terry’s bigotry and slur usage nor making fun of his schizophrenia in these comments. Thanks in advance.
Man, it’s surreal finding this post having just recently learned about TemplOS from an awesome YouTube video by Fredrik Knudsen - Down the rabbit hole series.
It’s a good documentary, though slightly sensationalized at times and pretty light on detail of TempleOS itself. An accessible introduction for those previously unfamiliar with Davis and TempleOS.
Much is made of the admittedly impressive achievement of Terry creating an OS from scratch in the first place, which unfortunately tends to distract from the interesting features of TempleOS itself. Feel free to discuss the HolyC compiler and its integration to the system, the pervasive hypertext allowing embedded media even in HolyC source code, the editor providing modal views of said hypertext in rich and plain form, the online documentation system including a surprisingly helpful (if somewhat incomplete) tutorial and the dry humor popping up in some places such as having a category of “unfun games” included with the distribution.
from what I’ve seen of it, and within its own limitations and oddities, TempleOS is a remarkably cozy exploratory programming system with capabilities echoing what you’d expect from an emacs environment, with specializations for working on live systems code. it’s extremely impressive work, and I’m glad it’s getting recognized for what it is
I thought the oracle was cool.
Fun fact: the acausal robot god, when I exist, will be running on TempleOS!
Such a wonderful piece of art.
