If I had the chance to meet any person, dead or alive, it would be a difficult decision. Religious figures may be the first to come to one’s mind; however, the entire point of a religion is that once the prophet who first relayed its message dies, the word travels onward, and the guidelines of said religion lead you throughout your life. Other important figures (or rich ones) also come to mind, but everything they have to say is probably already on the internet, so why even bother? You could also consider a dead relative that you never even got to meet, and that may seem appealing to others, but I think it would be difficult to talk to a person whom you haven’t met when the only thing you share is a blood relation. Having no other person whom I would want to meet, I landed on a very peculiar individual. This individual is Terry A. Davis, known as the creator of Temple OS. 

“What is Temple OS?” you might ask. Well, let me tell you.

Temple OS is a computer operating system. It alone is not that impressive. It has no networking capabilities, and it has underwhelming graphics, but where this gets interesting is when we talk about the story behind its creation. 

You see, Terry was not exactly a normal man, not only because he was diagnosed with schizophrenia but also because he was an exceptional programmer. Terry had been sent to mental hospitals on multiple occasions due to his mental state. At some point, he had a “revelation,” as he called it, and claimed that he was God’s chosen programmer and that he was able to communicate with him. 

Terry managed to create an entire operating system with its own graphics library and renderer. He even made his own programming language he dubbed “Holy C,” as it was a mix of sorts of the C and C++ languages. He not only made the whole operating system on his own but also made all the apps—and even a decent number of games for it, including a flight simulator and a game called “After Egypt.” Terry wrote about 100,000 lines of code for this operating system in total. 

He sadly died after being hit by a train in August of 2018. It is believed to have been a suicide, as in the last video he ever posted, “Terry Davis: Rises to Throne,” he said he “learned how to purify himself,” and he believed that he was a “horribly sick person” after trying to go to a library in a small town that he describes as “very pure.” Terry Davis was an exceptional programmer, and the circumstances of his death are extremely saddening…

If I were to meet him, I would love to talk to him about his work. I would want to know just how he did it all, I would want to understand the way he thought, and I would want to understand his point of view. If I could meet him, I would tell him how big an achievement he made, just how large a feat it was to make an entire operating system of his own.

I only wish that this man was given more of the mental help he desperately needed—and maybe he would have still been alive and well. He removed his videos from the internet, genuinely believing that he was littering it, and he spent his final days homeless, alone, and thinking he was impure and a burden on the world.

—Mohammad Lebzo