A man killed by a train in The Dalles in mid-August had a Youtube following and was a “minor celebrity” in the computer world for doing the Herculean task of writing his own operating system, a fan said.
Terrance Davis, 48, was killed Aug. 11 near West First and Terminal Avenue. He’d been homeless for some months and was schizophrenic. He spent 10 years writing his operating system, Temple OS, because God told him to, according to a 2014 tech magazine story on him titled “God’s Lonely Programmer.”
John McColl, a computer engineer from Sydney, Australia, said he hoped Davis would be remembered for his achievements and not his mental illness.
He said it was “kind of hard for a lay person to understand what a phenomenal achievement” it is to write an entire operating system singlehandedly. “It actually boggles my mind that one man wrote all that.”
He compared it to construction, saying a man could build a house by himself, but this was “like building a skyscraper by yourself.”
McColl was one of several fans of Davis who called the Chronicle to confirm his passing.
One video of Davis, in which he says he’s the smartest programmer in the world, has been viewed over 44,000 times. Commenters call him a “programming legend.” One noted that while Davis proclaims himself the best, he “built his own everything so I can’t really argue with him …”
Another fan, Kate Blue (not her real last name), said she wanted to keep anonymity because Davis was controversial.
“He had been repeatedly banned from Youtube because his schizophrenia caused him to say things that are very offensive. He couldn’t help it,” Blue said. “He was actually a genius.”
“I’m talking with some friends of his online right now and they’re devastated,” she said.
Blue, a computer engineer from Phoenix, said Davis’s operating system runs on a very specific part of a computer processor and is something unique that no one else has done before.
“It’s extremely quick. It’s very fast. It can only do a few things but what it does it does very quickly.”
The operating system is rudimentary looking, like something from the early days of personal computers. In the 2014 article, in Motherboard, Davis said all the aspects of it were dictated by God.
Blue said Davis could’ve been a Steve Jobs or a Steve Wozniak were it not for his mental illness.
“He did not want to be medicated, that was his thing. And anytime he was given medications he would refuse it,” saying they “stifled his creativity and turned him into a lump.”
McColl said he talked regularly to Davis, and when he was talking about computers, as he did with McColl, he was always lucid and showed no signs of delusional behavior.
Another fan, a clinical psychologist from Iowa who asked that his name not be used, said Davis worked as a lead engineer at Ticketmaster and lead software engineer at Graphic Technologies before his mental illness pushed him out of the workforce in the early 2000s.
He was homeless for a time in 2004, and did so to evade being hospitalized, the psychologist said.
He also became homeless earlier this year for the same reason.
Davis told him he became homeless “to escape the dog catchers.” He’d been living with his sister in Phoenix, the psychologist said.
During his homelessness, his fans helped him, bringing him supplies. But he refused offers of housing, including from fans in Atlanta and Houston.
Davis went to California, then headed to Portland sometime in April, and then walked to The Dalles, the psychologist said.
In June, The Dalles Police Department got a courtesy notification from the Portland Police Bureau’s behavioral unit that Davis may be heading there and could be a danger, since he said if God told him to kill, he would.
Police never found Davis at that time and never got any complaints about him, said The Dalles Police Capt. Jamie Carrico.
According to a police report on the death, on the evening of Aug. 11, Davis was walking along the railroad tracks, with his back to an oncoming train, when he turned and faced the train before it hit him. The train engineer considered it a suicide, according to the report.
The psychologist said none of Davis’s fans thought suicide was possible, and they hadn’t seen signs of depression.
He said Davis had posted hours and hours of videos over the years, but because he believed God’s 11th commandment was to not litter, he deleted a lot of his videos “littering” the internet just before his death.
He posted one last video, a few hours before his death. In retrospect, that video may have hinted at depression, the psychologist said.
“He said something about it must’ve been a shock to these people in The Dalles that such a vile person was among them and that he learned how to purify himself.
“The last 20 seconds of the video I think are interesting because he leaned back and he said ‘It’s good to be king. Well, maybe. Sometimes I think I’m just a weird little person walking back and forth.’ And that’s it. He’d never shown that kind of personal doubt before.”
The psychologist said he developed an interest in Davis as a person. “I’ve been trying to put it into words for a long time now because what he had to say a lot of times was extremely crazy and delusional and inflammatory, but it also, sometimes he had things to say that were really profound.
“The one that I keep remembering is, he said, ‘If you seek to lose your life you’ll save it, if you seek to save your life, you’ll lose it.’”
Davis’s website, TempleOS.org, notes that in the wake of Davis’s passing, his family has asked supporters of his to donate to organizations working to ease the pain and suffering caused by mental illness” such as The Brain & Behavior Research Foundation and the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
I thought he was on an adventure in the Northwest, not Texas.
Blake Howard
Never mind, I misread the OP.
Hunter Morris
F
Jaxson Fisher
F
Andrew Brooks
F
Jeremiah Green
>small local paper journalist >references are literally from the fags on templeos irc/discord >no police report Fake fucking news.
Noah Wood
God dammit. It's true.
F
Ryder Watson
If he's gone we will see him in paradise again one day. Rest In Paradise brother.. You're a legend
'But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.'
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
Elijah Williams
I think we can all agree that Terry was well trained.
Guys, the CIA niggers finally got him. I'm going to miss Terry so much.
Ayden Martinez
and that's why they had to kill him F Terry, miss your madness
Angel Turner
Why does he look like tucker?
Justin Campbell
This. Friendly reminder that there is STILL no fucking 100% definitive proof that Terry is dead.
There is plenty of evidence pointing towards a hoax, however. His death is being shilled to a ridiculous degree. Videos or comments calling this a hoax have been barraged by dislikes or negative comments. Gee, wonder why?
>You need to have wars to kill off the resource pigs. Fuck, he's not wrong. There are a lot of "people" in the west that need to be wiped out that are currently a net drain to our resources.
Matthew Adams
when did Terry start building temple OS? before or after he ran over the CIA operative in 1999?
Justin Jenkins
Terry was a literal genius even if he was bat shit, he is one of the few memes that annoyed me because most the people memeing him had never even been on Jow Forums and were just making fun of him.
Adrian Myers
>he ran over the CIA operative in 1999
BASED
Jose Young
what happpens with the os now? anyone working on it? is it free software?
>In June, The Dalles Police Department got a courtesy notification from the Portland Police Bureau’s behavioral unit that Davis may be heading there and could be a danger, since he said if God told him to kill, he would.
Don't all Christians believe that? That if God told them to kill they would do it?
F I wonder what made him pick the infamous Pajeet poisoning town as his final haunt? I would think there are still a few glow in the darks out that way.
Brandon Rogers
Amen brother
Josiah Johnson
F We love you terry
Bentley Morgan
Why do love Terry A. Davis? We see him as beautiful. Why do we see intellect as beautiful? Because God is truth, and truth is beauty. The Greeks told us this. Terry was beautiful because he saw God. And we love him for this.
let this serve as a reminder to americans that throwing out your children is giving them a death sentence
David Brooks
they want you to think he's dead, but the truth is that terry would have never committed suicide. he's obviously at a CIA black site right now as they try to force him to work on the AI overlord that's being developed
Zachary Hall
Terry was a degenerate who masturbated on camera for everyone to see. He's a sick pervert. I'm glad there is one less subhuman on this planet. Rot in hell Terry Davis. I piss on your grave.
Kevin Ward
This but unironically. Fucking CIA. What the actual fuck? CIA NIGGERS, GET IN THIS FUCKING THREAD RIGHT NOW AND JUSTIFY YOUR HERETICAL ACTIONS. YOU'VE STRUCK DOWN A MESSENGER OF THE LORD.
Because it's fun to laugh at crazy people, I don't give a fuck about whatever nerdy computer lingo he did, it was just hilarious to watch him say nigger and act deranged. Stop being such a moralcuck.
Isaiah Evans
If TD was my "child" he would died a long time ago then
Xavier Torres
he was cool but also crazy
just another nigger
Dominic Baker
>From 1998-2003 I fantasized about leading a Catholic army like Dune, of Mexicans or Brazilians. That was dumb because they're niggers F you beautiful bastard i'm truly gonna miss you
Landon Sullivan
How did he die? Did he intentionally get hit by a train? :( Feels bad man.
Apparently he intentionally did not get out of the way immediately after he was surprised to turn around and see it coming.
Hunter Evans
F
Leo Bailey
God-damn that's the helluva quote
Luke Murphy
F
Ethan Bailey
god bless his soul
James Sanchez
put this on /sci or the programming board
wtf does this have to do with /pol
Juan Rogers
Demonic possession is a choice. Terry chose God. Despite his illness, or demonic oppression, he chose to see God every day, and read His word. He built the Temple in his honor. Terry was not a degenerate.
Why are smart people more prone to depression and mental illnesses? can a brain be overworked?
Christopher Baker
I came to terms with the fact that he was probably gone a few days ago. it still feels like a punch in the gut. I was worried about him a year ago when he was driving his van around in the desert, but I thought he would be ok in Oregon, unless he pissed off the wrong homeless nigger.
Hunter Rivera
Good question. Someone needs to create a network stack for it. Then we can all shitpost from TempleOS. Not me though because I'm retarded.
Nicholas Bennett
it's unfortunately not a huge news story for anyone else but us.
Adam Cox
Yes that's why I chose the path of the imbecile and joined the army for a few years. I never felt depressed after that. Slowly getting back to original state with my current brain intensive job though.
Nathaniel Green
The more complicated something is, the higher the probability for something to go wrong.
Thomas Miller
Yeah dude bullying the mentally ill on an anime website is so alpha. Go larp somewhere else lol
Actually upset he passed away F Enjoy Heaven Terry
Nathaniel Martin
I literally don’t give a single fuck about Burt Reynolds or any famous person at all when they die.
I have a schizophrenic little brother who’s into programming, this actually really hurt to hear. Also hearing about someone larping as him on fb and his family were talking to who they thought was him... they never got to let Terry know how loved he was. I’m so sad about this man. Damn
Yeap. Same. I was praying this was a hoax and wasn’t true.
When normies say they sad about some shitbag like the coke head who played Princess Leia... do they feel this way or are they just saying it because “le nostalgia celebrity died le so sad”
I feel like they don’t care and just want talk about pop culture the way normies do so they have something to talk about at the water cooler on Monday
This fucking hurts though.
Thomas Long
I also felt this way about the sky king to. I wish I got the chance to meet him, he sounded like a really good guy
