TempleOS and Bubsy 3D

Richard Mitton on Terry A. Davis’ TempleOS:

TempleOS is somewhat of a legend in the operating system community. It’s sole author, Terry A. Davis, has spent the past 12 years attempting to create a new operating from scratch. Terry explains that God has instructed him to construct a temple, a 640×480 covenant of perfection. Unfortunately Terry also suffers from schizophrenia, and has a tendency to appear on various programming forums with a burst of strange, paranoid, and often racist comments. He is frequently banned from most forums.

This combination of TempleOS’s amateurish approach and Terry’s unfortunate outbursts have resulted in TempleOS being often regarded as something to be mocked, ignored, or forgotten. Many people have done some or all of those things, and it’s understandable why.

This article reminded me of Robert Ashley’s awesome A Life Well Wasted podcast, but more specifically the episode where he speaks with Nick “Ulillillia” Smith. Like Terry Davis’ and his TempleOS, Nick Smith does what he loves and dismisses nearly every modern convention or standard and just does his own thing.

In 2007 when I first watched Nick Smith’s now famous 5 secrets of level 2 in Bubsy 3d video it was way too easy to laugh at him for his tone of voice and attachment to a completely obscure game. Today there are people making bank on videos about the most obscure  games and Smith was just ahead of the game.