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ZenithOS is a modernized fork of the 64-bit Temple Operating System (github.com/zenithos)
95 points by nix23 on May 6, 2021 | hide | past | favorite | 40 comments



> 440Hz 'A' tuning changed to 432Hz

That's very Terry of the authors, considering the conspiracy theory involved here. (Yes, it's a whole thing: https://jakubmarian.com/the-432-hz-vs-440-hz-conspiracy-theo...)


That was an interesting read, thanks!


>32 bit color

Terry must be rolling in his grave


Not even using the blessed HolyC anymore. Glowies are written all over this.


Not even HolyC ? Then what's even the point? I was going write.. great, let's do networking too! but not in HolyC ? Nevermind then.

I'm gonna build my own TempleOS fork, with blackjack and...


It says they're using "CosmiC", which seems like it might be a fork of HolyC, but Google gives me nothing but the repo.


Temple OS is fascinating: TempleOS (formerly J Operating System, LoseThos, and SparrowOS) is a biblical-themed lightweight operating system designed to be the Third Temple prophesied in the Bible. It was created by American programmer Terry A. Davis, who developed it alone over the course of a decade after a series of manic episodes that he later described as a revelation from God.


A little background: The “glowing” remarks refer to Terry Davis’ racist, schizophrenic exclamations about being followed by CIA agents that glow in the dark.

Fascinating guy, fascinating OS. If you don’t know Terry at all, the video linked in another comment is a good high-level introduction. For a bit more detail on his technical philosophy this last interview with him can be insightful: https://youtu.be/HXwNTw4I6Ok

This fork throws away some of Terry’ supposedly divinely dictated limitations, so I can only imagine what videos he’d record about it. Still, it’s a fascinating exploration and continuation of his legacy (that he enabled by sharing the code).


Genuinely curious. Why is the concept of a CIA agent that glows in the dark considered 'racist'?


Barely related, Terry just used extreme racist language. From his Wikipedia

"Although Davis remained lucid when discussing computer-related subjects, his communication skills were significantly affected by his schizophrenia. He was controversial for his regular use of racial epithets, which he explained was his way of combating actors of psychological warfare. "

He had some problems but the internet tried to put up with him. He had a few accounts here, usually only lasting a few comments before being banned. People were genuine with him and when he made a decent post it would be vouched for and seen.

As someone who struggles with mental health issues too, it was very endearing seeing how he was treated despite his issues here and elsewhere online.


Oh, not the glowing. The n-words he liked to use, including after “CIA”.


This thread is glowing bright green...


The Zenith Operating System is a modernized, professional fork of the 64-bit Temple Operating System. Guiding principles of development include transparency, full user control, and adherence to public-domain/open-source implementations.


What exactly is "adherence to public-domain/open-source implementations" in context of this specific operating system?



Unfortunately the github page and the website don't explain what the OS actually is.

Anyway, it's on Wikipedia and is fairly fascinating: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TempleOS


>Anyway, it's on Wikipedia and is fairly fascinating

It is, and the best playground for any OS dev...boot time is also fascinating :)


Another great playground with vibrant community, unix-like and with impressive boot time: SerenityOS


Yes SerenityOS is great, the founder has some really good coding sessions on YT.



Here is 85 min documentary about TempleOS and its creator, https://youtu.be/UCgoxQCf5Jg


there is no god but god and terry a davis was his messenger, the author of this OS is clearly a heretic.


Betrays many of the core design principles of TempleOS. Absolutely glowing.


Many?

Two to be exact. More than 640x480 and 32bit color..


I never knew how to feel about TempleOS given Terry’s increasingly erratic behavior until his death.

The guy was obviously very smart, but it’s hard to separate the work from some of the things he said. (Thinking about him dropping N-words in his videos)


Terry had obvious mental illness. It's harder for me to be prejudiced against the imperfect nature of human brains than it is to evaluate work on its own merit.

As a counter example, do you feel comfortable benefitting from the work of people who you don't know haven't ever said or done anything that someone might find objectionable? If not, you're probably less morally or ethically motivated than you are susceptible to ostricism.


This reminds me of the ethics behind modern British air-sea rescue techniques, where they learned to lift people from freezing water in a horizontal position instead of vertical because this had a higher rate of survival. The data behind the science came from Nazi experiments in Dachau.

"Victims are ethically owed many things: recognition that what was done to them was indeed wrong, a credible indication that the society takes this seriously, an effort to identify, apprehend and punish the perpetrators, and compensation for their ongoing suffering and disadvantage. But beyond this, we have an obligation not to forget, and not to whitewash."

https://www.abc.net.au/religion/is-it-ethical-to-use-data-fr...


The best outcome from Terry's legacy is to show people that the hobby community will respect your work even if you are a "nuanced" person

The worst outcome is someone seeing a pattern of racism being ignored that is not so "nuanced". This will cause people to open up less, viewing an endorsement and not a tolerance


He didn't even mean it in a racist way. He had nothing against black people. He thought saying it saves him from CIA monitoring, and his usage usually referred to groups of predominantly white people ("CIA n..." was his most common usage).


This is simply not true.

You can find instances of Terry from his homeless period (sad that this is even a sentence I can write) where he uses the same slur for random black people passing by, without the CIA affiliation. There are also a lot of instances where that slur is used in the context of calling something dumb or a bad idea.

I do not blame Terry, he was obviously extremely unwell. However it's pretty bold to claim that there wasn't a racial connection with his use of, uh, racial slurs.


I love this explanation even if I don't believe it!

The idea that a kind of forced toxicity can be a necessary protection to do good is worthy of a dystopian sci fi novel!

It's similar to the forced obscurity of the Urbit project.


Believe it as much as you'd believe a guy who thought that aliens and the CIA are working together to prevent the second coming of Jesus Christ and the God turned him into the smartest programmer in the world because he's The Chosen One to fight them by making an operating system based on God's direct instructions. It's his own words, and consistent with his behavior; he shared positivity towards black people too. He absolutely wasn't racist pre-schizofrenia - also a total atheist.


>The idea that a kind of forced toxicity can be a necessary protection to do good is worthy of a dystopian sci fi novel!

I don't know if it's fair to call it forced toxicity, so much as psuedo-toxicity; he's using it as red herring (or maybe a honeypot?) and following the rule: if you specifically want to be avoided by cancel culture... just get yourself cancelled :)

That is, he's using the toxic word without the toxic meaning, to bypass shallow filters that lack the nuance to catch on.

I'd say it's more of a kafkaesque bureaucratic distopia than a sci-fi one


...he was highly mentally disturbed. It's not like tourettes, but it still changes the context.


> it’s hard to separate the work from some of the things he said

Consider watching a television show covering dissociative disorders.


>Thinking about him dropping N-words in his videos

Whats the problem with it? I hear that word in lots of Music Videos.


Can you show me these “lots” of music videos using the m word ending in “er”?

For this specific case it is more nuanced, however to pretend the same word is used in pop culture is a joke.


>Can you show me these “lots” of music videos using the m word ending in “er”?

https://www.lyrics.com/ and put in the n-word

>For this specific case it is more nuanced, however to pretend the same word is used in pop culture is a joke.

Well it is used..check link above.


I’m not sure how to take you. My jump to conclusion knee jerk assumption is you are some level of racist and smug/out of touch.

Did you check any of the songs?

As someone who barely knows popular music, but could recognize some names, I checked those. The first page MGK/Young Jeezy, another Young Jeezy, and Snoop’s songs —- none of them use the “er” ending in the actual songs. The lyrics on other functioning sites don’t use the “er” ending.

I wonder what makes you so confident, being on your side of such a sensitive topic. You seemingly did not do basic good faith research or verification. Seems more like you want your angry , “edgy” world view to be correct. You look for things to prove that. Not actual truth or facts.

I normally don’t behave this outwardly aggressive, but to point to a half broken lyrics.com site that is wildly incorrect as your worldview evidence...ah I don’t know.


There is a theory in psychology that frequent socialization like most healthy adults have with friends, family and even coworkers is essential for mental health.

There are many reasons for that, but I would like to focus on the corrective behavior it implicitly propagates (Which is also a bit dystopian) if you start having deviating thoughts, then your social interactions will likely function as a correction.

If you start talking about lizard aliens (horrible example) then you will get feedback either directly or indirectly that it is erroneous meme.

The dystopian aspect of it is that this social control can over correct and serve to keep novel ideas and approaches from being pursued.

History is filled with people going against the very center of common wisdom. Most of the time it is probably erroneous memes but now and again it a brilliant realization that will turn out to be correct.

This social conditioning can also happen in reverse, when you end up in a social circle that already has established an alternate model with incorrect memes. This can lead to radicalization and anti-social and violent behavior.

The mechanism is the same, but the outcome is the opposite.

As modern western society tries to make strides to be more inclusive and trying to adopt a dogma of acceptable traits and behavior that are considered "inclusive" and then some go to great lengths to enforce and evangelize a particular dogma of inclusiveness, the result is that new section of society is excluded.

There is much work to stop racist, sexist, etc behavior, but there is also a trend to enforce neurohomogenousness.

As we learn to be more tolerant, respectful and inclusive work needs to be done to extend this to neurodivergent individuals.

One should not judge or condemn a mentally ill person due to the symptoms and manifestations that they are often not able to control.

Such a person might well be an individual with some great strengths and a lot ot contribute.

Judging, ostracizing, and ridiculing a mentally ill person is bully behavior due to a lack of understanding of non-neurotypical challenges.

We already tolerate deviant behavior based on certain criteria. Most feel that songs containing the N world are only acceptable if it is in the context of hiphop / rap used within a majority black group.

On the other hand, it is used by a white pride group, the music is not tolerated, protested against and attempts to silence it.

Since we already have a mechanism where intent of using an impermissible phrase and culture within where it is used decided if it is tolerable or not, should be extended to non-neurotypical people.

It is in fact a great lesson in tolerance and inclusiveness to do so.

I think the worst thing one can do to a person who suffers from mental illness is to vilify them and cast them out. This can only contribute to further decline, shame and alienation. It is withdrawing any chance of social corrective behavior. The goal here would not be compliance since that is clearly not achievable, it may help some in further decline.

If a rant, or word comes, dont get angry dont condemn, dont punish, dont encourage, dont repeat, dont mock, dont laugh, tolerate it, even when it is difficult.

It can mean the world to a mentally ill person to feel a bit of community, understanding and acceptance.

Terry had a lot to contribute, and he was a smart person, and a hard worker. He was also suffering from mental illness that was well diagnosed. That was not his fault, nor anything he could control.

Perhaps he did not take his medication regularly. This is common.

A majority of mentally ill people find pills to one extent, or another dulls their brains and make them a vegetable.

I am a mentally ill person. I do my best to take my medication. I hate what it does to my brain.

It is in no way a razor to just tweak just the right part of the brain. It is a sledgehammer that may also help dull/tweak the part of the brain where the problem resides.

Further they have little idea what chemical will work and mostly throw several types at you and then wait and observe. Some have exceedingly unfortunate side effects.

If it is not working, or even worse it makes things worse, they throw another at you and the cycle continues. each prescription is tried for 2 - 16 weeks depending on reactions.

My manifestations are not at all similar to what Terry was struggling with but I have my own.

I wish people could see it more as a physical disability. You are in a wheelchair you can't walk and you try to be helpful and Pick venues etc that are wheelchair accessible.

A mentally ill person can no more be blamed for his illness than a person in a wheel chair can be blamed for not walking.

I urge everyone to work on being more inclusive also when it comes ot mental illness.

(Side note: It matters what is wrong and how it manifests. Some mentally ill people need to be confined to an institution. In the US that often becomes prison, which is horribly wrong to treat mental illness. Some are violent and unpredictable, some have too many hallucinations to interact productively.

I will say that ths is , in a less frequent manner, the same when you include people you think are "normal". Some are violent, some are scammers etc.)




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