6 ms·

A Constructive Look at TempleOS (2015)

130 points by beefman 8y ago

phendrenad2 8y ago
One thing that stands out to me is that... TempleOS could have been even MORE complex, but the author, for reasons he can best express, decided to limit himself to 256 color VGA, no networking (if memory serves). It really serves as an inspiration to not give up when people tell you “it’s too much work”.
- newnewpdro 8y ago
  640x480 16-colors
- sb057 8y ago
  Per Terry: >God said 640x480 16 color was a covenant like circumcision. You can be uncircumcised. https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/3mhxc9/templeos_at_1024x512_resolution/cvf7ctv/ https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/3mhxc9/templeo...
  - faissaloo 8y ago
    >The CIA fights dirty and definitly will fight TempleOS. The glow in the darks man, they're up to something
  - themodelplumber 8y ago
    That's interesting to me because even seen as a pure negative, circumcision was originally a minor trade-off in a covenant wherein God agreed to make Abraham a "father of nations." And here, essentially, Terry makes a little graphics sacrifice and, according to Terry, gets help from God himself in building the rest of this remarkable TempleOS. Seen from that perspective it makes the graphics seem like a minor deal. This will probably cause the downvotes to rain down, but to continue the Abraham analogy, who knows what Terry's work will go on to influence in the future; maybe Terry becomes a "father" in a long chain of Temple-influenced OS projects.
    - sterlind 8y ago
      I think you're right there. TempleOS is full of Bible metaphors - the root task is Adam, HolyC is a pun, etc. The circumcision metaphor fits. ..I wonder how much more of Terry's seemingly nonsensical musings are actually lucid metaphors. The man needed a translator (or the "holy spirit", metaphorically speaking)
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
dagenix 8y ago
I guess this in response to the passing / maybe passing of it's author, Terry Davis. It's still not fully clear to me if that's a rumor or if it's real. Regardless, it's clear that Terry is both a tremendously talented and deeply troubled person. But, his personal troubles have nothing to do with the technical merits of what he created - it's impressive, to say the least. These accomplishments, however, don't in any way excuse his egregious behavior. He's a complicated figure.
- shawn 8y ago
  These accomplishments, however, don't in any way excuse his egregious behavior. Every time TempleOS comes up, someone chimes in with a remark like this. Can't we just focus on the technical aspects?
  - icelancer 8y ago
    It's better if you get out in front of it before someone with no knowledge of Terry's history comes in guns blazing with accusations that Terry is a mega racist evil person.
  - tree_of_item 8y ago
    No, because his behavior really is over the top and is going to draw attention every single time.
  - dagenix 8y ago
    It is his project. It's his legacy. I don't see how you can separate him from what he created - I never got the feeling that he wanted anyone to - so why should we? History is what it is - let's recognize that and look at the good with the bad.
    - ekianjo 8y ago
      Easy to separate. You dont think about a singer's private life doing drugs to be able to enjoy their music. Why is it different here? And if you only follow folks who have never said anything wrong in their whole life, well you cant do much anymore can you? Because true saints are rare to come by.
analognoise 8y ago
Didn't Terry just die recently?
- LeoPanthera 8y ago
  No one seems to know for sure. There was a rumor but no proof.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- skissane 8y ago
  I think, for all that Terry has done with TempleOS, I'm sure he could have done a lot lot more if he didn't have his mental health issues holding him back. I really hope that one day if he could get a bit better he could do some really wonderful things. If it is true that he has passed away, that is sad – not just sad in the sense that it is always sad when someone dies, but sad that this possibility would then be forever foreclosed.
  - jdswain 8y ago
    But maybe if he didn't have those same issues he would have never started TempleOS in the first place. It takes a certain rejection of reality to even consider writing a complete operating system on your own, and yet he is one of the very very few people that have succeeded at it.
    - LeoPanthera 8y ago
      The OS was started before he had significant health problem. The religious theme was applied to it later.
    - asveikau 8y ago
      > It takes a certain rejection of reality to even consider writing a complete operating system on your own This is not true. In fact, it is in some sense an affirmation of the reality that the pieces beneath your high-level software are approachable by mortals and not magic. I used to hack on one just for fun. The difficulty is highly overestimated by some folks here. There are a lot of topics you could go into very deeply and each of these can turn out to be a huge time sink, and the lack of time is the main reason I stopped. Some of my favorite down-the-rabbit-hole sub-topics were filesystems, synchronization, and message passing for a micro-kernel. Each of these could be someone's full time job but they are approachable.
Mister_Snuggles 8y ago
The more I read about TempleOS, the more fascinated I am. I read articles like this one and have trouble imagining how it can possibly work, but I know that's just my Windows/Unix-centric mindset limiting my thinking. I should really spark up a VM and try it out. It sounds like some quality time with this would expand my view of how a computing environment can work.
polkapolka 8y ago
Gone to sleep for the final time. Ash to ... And dust to dust.
pvg 8y ago
From 2015 and previouslies: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=A%20Constructive%20Look%20at%20TempleOS&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=A%20Constructive%20Look%20at%2...
sergiotapia 8y ago
Did Terry die or is it a very elaborate hoax? I've even seen screencaps of his brother's facebook posting memorials of him.
burlesona 8y ago
This was a really thoughtful and interesting read. Thank you for posting it!
Endy 8y ago
I don't know if I could use this as an everyday OS, but I can see so much good coming from it. Stop thinking about the newest, latest, and greatest. Stop taking control away from the user. These things, and more, we should learn from this project.
logicallee 8y ago
The video linked at "[this" point is unavailable: >In [this video] Terry gives a brief tour of some of the more interesting features of TempleOS. At 5:50, he shows how to build a small graphical application from scratch. However, I was able to find it here: http://web.archive.org/web/20170313160408/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-dVp542XGk http://web.archive.org/web/20170313160408/https://www.youtub...
Yhippa 8y ago
I'm reading this thing nodding my head all the way down. Clean code practicioners would balk at this but I thought this was cool: > It's not every IDE that lets you embed images and flowcharts directly into your source code, that kinda makes you sit up and take notice. And yes, those flowchart boxes are hotlinked, so you can click on them to go directly to the source code that implements them. Also the system-wide native autocomplete is cool. My old Palm Pre had that and it was very handy. So many cool bits of technology will remain in the shadows of history. So sad.
adiusmus 8y ago
Excellent article. I think TempleOS migrated most of the interesting parts of the c64 over to the pc quite well and updated as the developer saw fit. Deliberate limitations, eg screen resolution, remove a massive amount of work which is necessary if you’re a lone developer. Priorities are important. That said, a lack of networking and decent sound support are the missing items I’d add. A web browser would be nice but the layers of complexity required makes that much less feasible. Networked versions of TempleOS would raise a lot of interesting design decisions that are still worth exploring. I like the thinking behind the shell, the hyperlinking etc and other os are quite backwards in comparison with the integrated approach to the shell. There’s a lot to be gained from grabbing some of these and bringing them into linux etc. Curses could easily be used to do this, or something like Electron or node.js. The thought of all that javascript to do the equivalent... the mind boggles. These alternative operating systems show that the mainstream doesn’t have all the answers. If assembly language doesn’t scare you, have a look at http://menuetos.net/ http://menuetos.net/
r3vo 8y ago
I've been following the recent death/hoax of Terry Davis very closely. As far as I can tell it is so far unconfirmed by any reliable sources. But from what I've gathered it unfortunately seems likely that Terry has passed away. The prominent theory is that he was a victim of an accident involving a train in the Dalles, Oregon. http://www.thedalleschronicle.com/news/2018/jan/03/local-man-killed-train-dec-30/ http://www.thedalleschronicle.com/news/2018/jan/03/local-man... https://i.imgur.com/b1EEp2T.png https://i.imgur.com/b1EEp2T.png This has supposedly been confirmed by family members but everything I've heard is from unscrupulous sources.

130 points by beefman 8y ago

One thing that stands out to me is that... TempleOS could have been even MORE complex, but the author, for reasons he can best express, decided to limit himself to 256 color VGA, no networking (if memory serves). It really serves as an inspiration to not give up when people tell you “it’s too much work”.

newnewpdro 8y ago
640x480 16-colors
sb057 8y ago
Per Terry: >God said 640x480 16 color was a covenant like circumcision. You can be uncircumcised. https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/3mhxc9/templeos_at_1024x512_resolution/cvf7ctv/ https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/3mhxc9/templeo...
- faissaloo 8y ago
  >The CIA fights dirty and definitly will fight TempleOS. The glow in the darks man, they're up to something
- themodelplumber 8y ago
  That's interesting to me because even seen as a pure negative, circumcision was originally a minor trade-off in a covenant wherein God agreed to make Abraham a "father of nations." And here, essentially, Terry makes a little graphics sacrifice and, according to Terry, gets help from God himself in building the rest of this remarkable TempleOS. Seen from that perspective it makes the graphics seem like a minor deal. This will probably cause the downvotes to rain down, but to continue the Abraham analogy, who knows what Terry's work will go on to influence in the future; maybe Terry becomes a "father" in a long chain of Temple-influenced OS projects.
  - sterlind 8y ago
    I think you're right there. TempleOS is full of Bible metaphors - the root task is Adam, HolyC is a pun, etc. The circumcision metaphor fits. ..I wonder how much more of Terry's seemingly nonsensical musings are actually lucid metaphors. The man needed a translator (or the "holy spirit", metaphorically speaking)

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

dagenix 8y ago

I guess this in response to the passing / maybe passing of it's author, Terry Davis. It's still not fully clear to me if that's a rumor or if it's real. Regardless, it's clear that Terry is both a tremendously talented and deeply troubled person. But, his personal troubles have nothing to do with the technical merits of what he created - it's impressive, to say the least. These accomplishments, however, don't in any way excuse his egregious behavior. He's a complicated figure.

shawn 8y ago
These accomplishments, however, don't in any way excuse his egregious behavior. Every time TempleOS comes up, someone chimes in with a remark like this. Can't we just focus on the technical aspects?
- icelancer 8y ago
  It's better if you get out in front of it before someone with no knowledge of Terry's history comes in guns blazing with accusations that Terry is a mega racist evil person.
- tree_of_item 8y ago
  No, because his behavior really is over the top and is going to draw attention every single time.
- dagenix 8y ago
  It is his project. It's his legacy. I don't see how you can separate him from what he created - I never got the feeling that he wanted anyone to - so why should we? History is what it is - let's recognize that and look at the good with the bad.
  - ekianjo 8y ago
    Easy to separate. You dont think about a singer's private life doing drugs to be able to enjoy their music. Why is it different here? And if you only follow folks who have never said anything wrong in their whole life, well you cant do much anymore can you? Because true saints are rare to come by.

analognoise 8y ago

Didn't Terry just die recently?

LeoPanthera 8y ago
No one seems to know for sure. There was a rumor but no proof.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
skissane 8y ago
I think, for all that Terry has done with TempleOS, I'm sure he could have done a lot lot more if he didn't have his mental health issues holding him back. I really hope that one day if he could get a bit better he could do some really wonderful things. If it is true that he has passed away, that is sad – not just sad in the sense that it is always sad when someone dies, but sad that this possibility would then be forever foreclosed.
- jdswain 8y ago
  But maybe if he didn't have those same issues he would have never started TempleOS in the first place. It takes a certain rejection of reality to even consider writing a complete operating system on your own, and yet he is one of the very very few people that have succeeded at it.
  - LeoPanthera 8y ago
    The OS was started before he had significant health problem. The religious theme was applied to it later.
  - asveikau 8y ago
    > It takes a certain rejection of reality to even consider writing a complete operating system on your own This is not true. In fact, it is in some sense an affirmation of the reality that the pieces beneath your high-level software are approachable by mortals and not magic. I used to hack on one just for fun. The difficulty is highly overestimated by some folks here. There are a lot of topics you could go into very deeply and each of these can turn out to be a huge time sink, and the lack of time is the main reason I stopped. Some of my favorite down-the-rabbit-hole sub-topics were filesystems, synchronization, and message passing for a micro-kernel. Each of these could be someone's full time job but they are approachable.

Mister_Snuggles 8y ago

The more I read about TempleOS, the more fascinated I am. I read articles like this one and have trouble imagining how it can possibly work, but I know that's just my Windows/Unix-centric mindset limiting my thinking. I should really spark up a VM and try it out. It sounds like some quality time with this would expand my view of how a computing environment can work.

polkapolka 8y ago

Gone to sleep for the final time. Ash to ... And dust to dust.

pvg 8y ago

From 2015 and previouslies: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=A%20Constructive%20Look%20at%20TempleOS&sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=story&storyText=false&prefix&page=0 https://hn.algolia.com/?query=A%20Constructive%20Look%20at%2...

sergiotapia 8y ago

Did Terry die or is it a very elaborate hoax? I've even seen screencaps of his brother's facebook posting memorials of him.

burlesona 8y ago

This was a really thoughtful and interesting read. Thank you for posting it!

Endy 8y ago

I don't know if I could use this as an everyday OS, but I can see so much good coming from it. Stop thinking about the newest, latest, and greatest. Stop taking control away from the user. These things, and more, we should learn from this project.

logicallee 8y ago

The video linked at "[this" point is unavailable: >In [this video] Terry gives a brief tour of some of the more interesting features of TempleOS. At 5:50, he shows how to build a small graphical application from scratch. However, I was able to find it here: http://web.archive.org/web/20170313160408/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-dVp542XGk http://web.archive.org/web/20170313160408/https://www.youtub...

Yhippa 8y ago

I'm reading this thing nodding my head all the way down. Clean code practicioners would balk at this but I thought this was cool: > It's not every IDE that lets you embed images and flowcharts directly into your source code, that kinda makes you sit up and take notice. And yes, those flowchart boxes are hotlinked, so you can click on them to go directly to the source code that implements them. Also the system-wide native autocomplete is cool. My old Palm Pre had that and it was very handy. So many cool bits of technology will remain in the shadows of history. So sad.

adiusmus 8y ago

Excellent article. I think TempleOS migrated most of the interesting parts of the c64 over to the pc quite well and updated as the developer saw fit. Deliberate limitations, eg screen resolution, remove a massive amount of work which is necessary if you’re a lone developer. Priorities are important. That said, a lack of networking and decent sound support are the missing items I’d add. A web browser would be nice but the layers of complexity required makes that much less feasible. Networked versions of TempleOS would raise a lot of interesting design decisions that are still worth exploring. I like the thinking behind the shell, the hyperlinking etc and other os are quite backwards in comparison with the integrated approach to the shell. There’s a lot to be gained from grabbing some of these and bringing them into linux etc. Curses could easily be used to do this, or something like Electron or node.js. The thought of all that javascript to do the equivalent... the mind boggles. These alternative operating systems show that the mainstream doesn’t have all the answers. If assembly language doesn’t scare you, have a look at http://menuetos.net/ http://menuetos.net/

r3vo 8y ago

I've been following the recent death/hoax of Terry Davis very closely. As far as I can tell it is so far unconfirmed by any reliable sources. But from what I've gathered it unfortunately seems likely that Terry has passed away. The prominent theory is that he was a victim of an accident involving a train in the Dalles, Oregon. http://www.thedalleschronicle.com/news/2018/jan/03/local-man-killed-train-dec-30/ http://www.thedalleschronicle.com/news/2018/jan/03/local-man... https://i.imgur.com/b1EEp2T.png https://i.imgur.com/b1EEp2T.png This has supposedly been confirmed by family members but everything I've heard is from unscrupulous sources.