Terry A. Davis and the machine he built

Here's the short version. Terry A. Davis, 1969 to 2018, was an American programmer. He built TempleOS mostly alone — a 64-bit public-domain hobby operating system. Earlier names included J Operating System, LoseThos, and SparrowOS. The work is remarkable. We are here because of the work.

He had schizophrenia. That is a medical fact, not a punchline and not a plot. We will not mock it, and we will not platform the worst things he said. We will talk about the machine.

TempleOS runs at ring-0, the privilege level where the kernel lives. 640×480. Sixteen colours. No network stack. HolyC is the system language: C-like, with a just-in-time compiler, used both to write the OS and to talk to it. Print() exists. Programs look like C if you squint, then they don't.

Print("hello");

You will not run TempleOS in this browser. You match a line. The respect is in the matching — in taking the language as a language, not as a joke.

If you go looking for his videos, you will find brilliance and you will find harm. This desk keeps the machine. Next lesson: what the language actually feels like when you type it.