What is Temple OS?

Who created Temple OS?

Terrence Andrew Davis was an American programmer who is mostly known for creating the Temple OS. Its development was an extremely complex, time-consuming, and unusual undertaking for one person. During his final stages of life, he amassed an online following and regularly posted video blogs on social media. Davis learned assembly language on a commodore 64. He later earned a master's degree in electrical engineering from Arizona State University and worked for several years at Ticketmaster as a programmer for VAX machines.

What is Temple OS?

Temple OS ( known as " J" Operating System from 2004 - 2005, " Lose Thos" from  2006- early 2012, and " Sparrow OS " in late 2012, and now known as "Temple OS". It is an operating system similar to the Commodore 64, DESQ view, and other early DOS-based interfaces. It was conceived by Davis in the early 2000s and developed alone over the course of a decade. This included the design of its original programming language, editor, compiler, and kernel. It was ultimately composed of over 100,000 lines of code. 

In 2005. Davis stated that his ambition for the "J" Operating System was to recreate the dynamic environment that used to exist when the Commodore 64 was around and everyone was creating odd-ball software. He envisioned the system as a Commodore 64 with a lot more powerful processing speed. Three years later, he wrote that the primary purpose of "Lose Thos" was for making video games. It has no networking or Internet support. As far as I'm concerned, that would be reinventing the wheel. 

Davis later proclaimed that he was in direct communication with God and that God told him to build a successor to the " Lose Thos" Operating System. After a long time, he created the " Temple OS" as he was born to build this Operating System. As such, references to Biblical tropes are ubiquitous in the OS. One bundled program, " After Egypt", is a game in which the player travels to a burning bush to use a "high-speed stopwatch". The stopwatch is meant to act as an oracle that generates pseudo-random text, something Davis believed to be coded messages from God. He linked the process to an Ouija board and speaking in tongues. An example of generated text is as follows:

"among consigned penally result perverseness checked stated held sensation reasonings skies adversity Dakola lip suffer approached enact displacing feast Canst pearl doing aims comprehendeth nought"

According to Davis, many of the system's features, such as its 640x480 resolution and 16-color display, were also explicit instructions from God. The charter on his website stated that Temple OS was "God's official temple. Just like Solomon's Temple, this is a community focal point where offerings are made and God's oracle is consulted". He used the oracle to ask God about war ("Servicemen competing"), death("awful"), dinosaurs("Brontosaurs feet hurt when stepped"), favorite video game (Donkey Kong), the favorite band (the Beatles), and the 11th commandment ("Thou shall not litter").

Davis's illness and spiritual awakening

Davis grew up Catholic but was an atheist for some of his adult life before experiencing what he called a "revelation from God". He has to go for a checkup every six months due to reoccurring manic episodes. According to Davis, he attributed a profound quality to the Rage Against the Machine lyric " some of those forces are the same that burn crosses" and recalled, "I started seeing people following me around in suits and stuff. It just seemed something was strange." He started donating large sums of money to charity organizations, something he had never done before. Later, he surmised, "that an act caused God to reveal himself to me and saved me."

Davis was initially diagnosed with bipolar disorder and later declared to have schizophrenia. Afterward, he felt guilty for being such a technology-advocate atheist and sought to emulate Jesus by giving away all his possessions and living a nomadic lifestyle. In July 1996, he returned to Arizona and started formulating plans for a new business. He designed a three-axis milling machine, as he recalled having 3D printing in mind as an obvious pursuit.  An incident involving a Dremel tool nearly set his apartment on fire, which caused him to abandon the idea. He subsequently lived with his parents in Las Vegas and collected Social Security disability payments.

After 2003, Davis's hospitalizations became less frequent. His schizophrenia still affected his communication skills, and his online comments were usually incomprehensible. However, he was reported as "always lucid" if the topic was about computers. Vice noted that, in 2012, he had a productive conservation with the contributors at MetaFilter, where his work was introduced as "an operating system written by a  schizophrenic programmer".

" That's all, We hope that this blog has added some value to your knowledge, Thank You"