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The Schizophrenic Programmer Who Built an OS To Talk To God
rossgneumann writes: Terry Davis, a schizophrenic programmer, has spent 10 years building an operating system to talk to God. He's done this work because God told him to. According to the TempleOS charter, it is "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." [The TempleOS V2.17 welcome screen] greets the user with a riot of 16-color, scrolling, blinking text; depending on your frame of reference, it might recall DESQview, the Commodore 64, or a host of early DOS-based graphical user interfaces. In style if not in specifics, it evokes a particular era, a time when the then-new concept of "personal computing" necessarily meant programming and tinkering and breaking things.
At least he didn't create systemd, gnome3, or the Windows 8 UI.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I remember that this individual caught a lot of flack for his OS in the past - he really does have a significant behavioral disorder, so if you provide feedback, do so in the gentlest of terms. He's a good guy with a difficult problem and a fun project.
Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest. -- Mark Twain
Yes, he's ill. But the OS he wrote is better than any I've written so far--how about you?
Crazy doesn't mean stupid.
Not sure, it's been a while ... message-passing, multi-tasking microkernel in the early 90s. Hand-rolled bare-metal HD drive controller and interrupt stack, with full ability to read and write FAT filesystems from reading the specs from the technical manual.
Haven't felt the need since OS class.
I have no idea what his does, I had to block the image of the scrolling glimpse into the abyss which was the screenshot of the OS before it induced a seizure.
Nor does it mean "newsworthy".
I've known a couple of schizophrenics and various people with varying degrees mental illness. What I would not do is subject most of them to the interwebs without a buffer between them and what happens.
Does pandering to showing the OS someone with schizophrenia wrote help them in any way? Is what he writes actually healthy for him? Or does it just let him wallow in some of his obsessions?
So, sure, it's definitely blinking and flashing. Does it actually do anything other than embed his own rituals? I have no idea.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Naaah! The media it's already full of such kind of people. But maybe this very one is the only to write an operating system ...
Sorry, forget this. There was one in Redmond some time ago ...
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
I have schizoaffective disorder which is basically bipolar disorder mixed with a bit of schizophrenia. I can relate with a lot of the experiences Terry has had, particularly the delusions and grandiousity. For most of my life I have been a strident atheist, and I still am. However, during both of my most profound manic episodes I came to believe that God had revealed himself to me and that I was destined to do his work and ultimately save the world from itself. These beliefs came about from the same sort of delusions of association that Terry describes. My ability to recognize patterns ran amok and I saw the divine in everything. The most innocous events and observations became messages from God.
I ended up in the mental health system on both occassions and was treated for acute mania (I am still followed by a psychiatrist). It took some time, but eventually the delusions faded and I became myself again. Unfortunately, however, even with the best treatment, not everyone has the same success. I've met people who have struggled with the same delusions for decades. What I've noticed is that the most well-adjusted people with chronic delusions typically have some sort of harmless outlet for their fantasies. A friend of mine, for example, has the persistent delusion (among others) that he is bastard son of Arnold Schwarzenegger which has motivated him to pursue body-building with great vigor. It has given him structure and purpose in his life, physical health, and opportunities to socialize.
My take on what Terry is doing is that its basically harmless, and probably a good thing in that it gives him something to do (thus keeping him out of trouble). It is quite true that publicity will only reinforce the delusion, but at this stage it appears that his delusions are so ingrained that the attention probably won't make a substantial difference in the trajectory of his illness.