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On Terry A. Davis

schizophrenic.io

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Re: On Terry A. Davis

#11

Post by skissane »

vletrmx wrote: post #4

> While it did have some recreational value, it did not provide a product that people could use that would enrich their lives. Because providing a 'product' is the sole criterion for success? The author is missing the point and doesn't understand TempleOS.

One thing that makes TempleOS less approachable is the extreme idiosyncrasy of some of its design decisions - e.g. limiting it to 640x480 with 16 colours even though supporting higher resolution and colour depth would have been little extra work, an intentionally very garish user interface, refusing to implement any networking support for ideological reasons. It was never going to be a mainstream OS, but it might have attracted a larger community of tinkerers if it were not for those decisions. (There are forks which improve some of these aspects, but a fork is never going to be as popular as the original.)

That said, extreme idiosyncrasy is relatively common in schizophrenia.

Re: On Terry A. Davis

#12

Post by djaouen »

ImaCake wrote: post #3

It's great to see someone with schizophrenia writing about the disorder. It's (relatively) easy to find patient voices for most psychiatric disorders, but very difficult with schizophrenia due to the severity of the condition. I've passed your blog along to some researchers and my network :)

I also have some other resources for schizophrenic programmers, if you are interested. In particular, [1].

[1] https://schizophrenic.io/blog/jobs

Re: On Terry A. Davis

#13

Post by thinkingemote »

YPPH wrote: post #10

Not to trivialise his achievement, but I'd be willing to wager any moderately competent systems programmer, if given 10+ years and no other commitments (work or family) could write a programming language, compiler, and real mode operating system for an x86_64 system. Side note, why were Ticketmaster hiring systems programmers writing such low level code? I grew up in the 90s/00s so missed this era of computing.

The question is why more people have not done it.

A bit like picassos answer to someone saying to him about his art "I could have done that!!" being "why haven't you?"

I would put templeos at the same level as art in that it's the creation and life rather than the craft or utility. Or in other words there is something transcendental about the project which would go beyond (but not technically) something a competent systems programmer should write as a hobby.

Art Vs craft has more of an artist inside of it. Noone else could have written templeos.

Re: On Terry A. Davis

#14

Post by codetrotter »

lukan wrote: post #9
vletrmx wrote: post #4

> While it did have some recreational value, it did not provide a product that people could use that would enrich their lives. Because providing a 'product' is the sole criterion for success? The author is missing the point and doesn't understand TempleOS.

"Because providing a 'product' is the sole criterion for success?" Wasn't the OS made to be used by people for real and not just as a toy? Could people use it for real? As a daily driver to get things done? (A real product) I do not think so, so what do you think what was the point of TempleOS then?

> what was the point of TempleOS

From what I’ve seen from videos where Terry was talking about TempleOS, it seems that a large part of the point of the OS and the programs that shipped with it was as a way of “talking to god”. Where he’d run a program and it would generate some random output and he said that those were words from god. I have to assume that this was very much because of his condition. Either way, a temple to god is part of what this OS was. TempleOS.

Furthermore, TempleOS validated many of his ideas of how an OS could be built differently from how many other OSes are made.

TempleOS is like a modern day Amiga or Commodore 64 operating system.

And I could easily imagine a world in which TempleOS was distributed preinstalled on some kind of non-networked home computer that they could have in Sunday schools around the world, as a tool for bible study and as a way of learning about computers, engaging youth who are interested in technology.

Re: On Terry A. Davis

#15

Post by astrobe_ »

> Let’s be clear: schizophrenia does not cause racism

Depends on the type of racism. If it's a false sense of superiority - probably the most common type of racism - well, maybe. But if it's the belief that some type of people are hostile to you for some reason, and your personality makes it so that you return it, then it is a persecutory delusion, just like conspiracy theories.

Re: On Terry A. Davis

#16

Post by superb_dev »

YPPH wrote: post #10

Not to trivialise his achievement, but I'd be willing to wager any moderately competent systems programmer, if given 10+ years and no other commitments (work or family) could write a programming language, compiler, and real mode operating system for an x86_64 system. Side note, why were Ticketmaster hiring systems programmers writing such low level code? I grew up in the 90s/00s so missed this era of computing.

That’s the impressive part, it takes a certain drive and vision to work on the same project for more than a decade

Re: On Terry A. Davis

#17

Post by kqr »

skissane wrote: post #11
vletrmx wrote: post #4

> While it did have some recreational value, it did not provide a product that people could use that would enrich their lives. Because providing a 'product' is the sole criterion for success? The author is missing the point and doesn't understand TempleOS.

One thing that makes TempleOS less approachable is the extreme idiosyncrasy of some of its design decisions - e.g. limiting it to 640x480 with 16 colours even though supporting higher resolution and colour depth would have been little extra work, an intentionally very garish user interface, refusing to implement any networking support for ideological reasons. It was never going to be a mainstream OS, but it might hav…

Well, that doesn't seem to stop users of fantasy consoles, so I'm not sure it's as a big problem for a userbase as you think.

Re: On Terry A. Davis

#19

Post by djaouen »

vletrmx wrote: post #4

> While it did have some recreational value, it did not provide a product that people could use that would enrich their lives. Because providing a 'product' is the sole criterion for success? The author is missing the point and doesn't understand TempleOS.

I am not saying that TempleOS wasn't a technical marvel. It was. I am merely stating the fact that its usage was (mainly) limited to recreation. Not that that's a bad thing, but my own ambition is to produce something with more than margi... small product-market fit.

Edit: I'm sorry if I come across as arrogant. I still have the "decoration" (programming-wise) of my elite education I am trying to trim. :(

Re: On Terry A. Davis

#20

Post by AlecSchueler »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #5
vletrmx wrote: post #4

> While it did have some recreational value, it did not provide a product that people could use that would enrich their lives. Because providing a 'product' is the sole criterion for success? The author is missing the point and doesn't understand TempleOS.

It may sound like the writer is implying lack of financial success is bad, but I don't think that's their intention. I think the word "product" is just a filler here - it could equally be "something" or "an executable".

What's the recreational value without an executable? Just watching his videos? Then surely the videos are the product.
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