TempleOS: a Christian Operating System

[Rev. Rye]

I'm subscribed to Fredrik Knudsen, who creates a series of documentaries on weird subjects, usually related to internet personalities, and here's one that I'm surprised hasn't come up at all here: TempleOS.





The man behind it is Terry A. Davis. He was a computer programmer who learned computer programming on a Commodore 64, and he managed to develop an entire Operating System from scratch. He also suffered from schizophrenia and was convinced that he was in direct contact with God (who apparently wanted it to have 640x480 resolution and 16 colours) and was convinced he was being targeted by the CIA (and apparently he ran over someone he thought was an agent on September 9, 1999). Did I mention that the earliest version of the OS was released to the public while Microsoft was working on Windows 7 and its first release as TempleOS was the same year as Windows 8.1? And that he was convinced that it was the true incarnation of the Third Temple?

Seriously, how the fuck did we miss this?

[T0 Th3 M4X]

I'm subscribed to Fredrik Knudsen, who creates a series of documentaries on weird subjects, usually related to internet personalities, and here's one that I'm surprised hasn't come up at all here: TempleOS.





The man behind it is Terry A. Davis. He was a computer programmer who learned computer programming on a Commodore 64, and he managed to develop an entire Operating System from scratch. He also suffered from schizophrenia and was convinced that he was in direct contact with God (who apparently wanted it to have 640x480 resolution and 16 colours) and was convinced he was being targeted by the CIA (and apparently he ran over someone he thought was an agent on September 9, 1999). Did I mention that the earliest version of the OS was released to the public while Microsoft was working on Windows 7 and its first release as TempleOS was the same year as Windows 8.1? And that he was convinced that it was the true incarnation of the Third Temple?

Seriously, how the fuck did we miss this?

My first job out of college was going out into communities and working with clients with severe mental illnesses.  A lot of them have schizophrenia.  What he went through is pretty "normal" for someone experiencing it.   A lot of the things he was trying to say probably made perfect sense to him, and I can imagine the search for conflict was for validation.  It's also a disease that makes it hard to medicate people experiencing it. The side effects of the meds are often worse to them than what they are experiencing without them, so they elect to just deal with the schizophrenia.  Sometimes they were court ordered and that made it all the more difficult.  That's why it was always important to have an idea how to deescalate an encounter.  Loved the clients I worked with but it was always a mixed bag on what to expect.

[zebo-the-fat]

That's silly, computers are not in the bible!

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Yet more evidence that being a lunatic, racist homophobe is no bar to creativity.

Boru

[Angrboda]

There are versions of linux built around being used for religious study. I may even have one on disk. I've considered using them at various times.

[Rev. Rye]

Yet more evidence that being a lunatic, racist homophobe is no bar to creativity.

Boru

You know, the strange thing is that, at least in this video, he doesn't seem to be that homophobic. I mean, he called one guy a faggot, and I suppose there's a whole lot more content around where he denigrates gay people, but it's surprisingly hard to find. At least it's harder to find him being homophobic than it is to find him calling people the N-word, but, given that he's targeting groups that, to my estimation, are overwhelmingly white (like 4channers or computer programmers), it almost seems like Dada racism (except for the one time he drops the N-bomb on some random black guy who was just passing him on the way to the store.) Like I said earlier, there's probably more content where he actually expresses legitimately racist views (like in that famous post where he mentions that "I fantacized about leading a Catholic army like Dune, of Mexicans or Brazilians? That was dumb because they're niggers.") But, well, a lot of the time, he drops the N-bomb so often and with so little context that it's almost like he's trying to put that famous Lenny Bruce routine about the N-word into practice: