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[Redneckerz]

Disclaimer: Despite that even family members claim his passing, there is some doubt as Terry has been a victim of hoaxes in the past, for example by 4Chan. Given the various sources of confirmation however, i would place this in the bracket extremely plausible.

From the Dalles Chronicle (requires premium membership, so here is a Cache)

A man in his late 40s was killed when he was struck by a train Saturday night just after 9 p.m. in the area of First and Terminal streets, according to The Dalles Police Department.

It is the third such fatality since last December, and the fourth since 2014. The man’s name was not being released pending notification of next of kin, said The Dalles Police Capt. Jamie Carrico.

It appears he is from out of town, he said. There were no signs as of now that the man was intoxicated, and witnesses “saw him straddle the rail” Carrico said. At least one person saw the crash happen, he said. The trains also have video that would show the crash, Carrico said.

Carrico has confirmed and notified the family that it is indeed Terry Davis:

His website also confirms his passing.

About Terry A. Davis:
Davis was a programmer suffering from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Due to this erratic style of discussing, Davis was a controversial person of interest on the web, which lead to bans on Reddit, Hacker News and other platforms.

On the other side of the stick, before being diagnosed in 1996 on bipolar disorder and schizophrenia Davis already had a carreer as a programmer and held a master's degree in electrics and technology. After 1996, Davis claimed to be able to communicate with God and in his will, started to create his operating system, TempleOS, in 2003.

Temple OS is an operating system that is created in a variant on C and C++, called HolyC. According to Davis, God instructed him that the resolution of his OS should be 640x480 in 16 colours. TempleOS has no memory protection and requires minmalistic hardware to function and to operate. Its concepts root back to Davis's past, where he worked on the Commodore 64. Davis's TempleOS in that sense adheres to a more free-form way of looking at computer hardware, and this is where the origins of TempleOS can be found.

TempleOS also has multiple references to the Bible, including the RedSea filesystem and the AfterEgypt Oracle. Davis created an impressive amount of programs, demo's, games and utilities for his TempleOS, which, according to CoderNotes, highlight a pool of innovative idea's, despite all the criticism that the OS rightly deserves.

More information:
TempleOS: The Site
CoderNotes: A constructive look at TempleOS
Motherboard: God's Lonely Programmer (An indepth look at both Davis and TempleOS)

 

[RubxQub]

Strange that the word "suicide" doesn't appear anywhere. I guess they aren't quick to use the "s-word" unless it's been confirmed or ruled as a suicide.

Shitty way to go out...train conductor is basically powerless to stop it and now has that on his conscious.

...never heard of this guy, but he sounds like he needed a lot more mental help than he was getting.

 

[Redneckerz]

Also a reminder, its not Daniel Day Lewis.

It is Terry A Davis.

 

[zombie_gamer87]

R.I.P. Terry.

 

[infinitys_7th]

Davis was a genius up there with Bill Gates and Steve Jobs.

Even if TempleOS is goofy as hell, it is something spectacular for one severely disabled man to have made, especially with the bizarre limitations "God" gave him for it.

 

[ResurrectedContrarian]

There are quite a few theologically-obsessed minds who played prominent roles in the history of programming, for what it's worth. A second notable case is the creator of the Perl language, Larry Walls, who also placed various biblical nods in his work and is a bit of a mastermind at linguistic concepts. I think that tends to be the link, incidentally: those who can think in code on a higher level sometimes have a stronger tendency to be attached to the pursuit of scriptural questions and connections.

 

[Alexander DeLarge]

This is really sad. If it weren't for his fucked up brain, he would've been a leading figure in technology. Truly a brilliant dude.

 

[McCheese]

He wrote some of the early booking operating systems systems for Ticketmaster. Schizophrenia is always terrible, but it's even more tragic knowing this guys genius was put to such waste.

Looking at his OS and software is fascinating. Some of it is clearly just him re-creating common features seen in Unix and Linux, but you also get things like his document format, his weird JIT re-compiler implementation, and his 3D renderer, which are just so alien in their methodology. But it gives you an idea that this guy could pretty much do anything he put his mind to, and under different circumstances could have been another Linus or Tim Sweeney.

Word of warning - his video's are pretty messed up, he claims to have done all sorts of horrific things which I won't repeat here. He generally flicks between being a harmless autistic and an offensive risk to society at random. One minute he's just filming himself awkwardly buying 20 bottles of Pepsi, and the next he's claiming he's being followed by 'CIA N*****s' and says he ran one over once and got away with it.

His death hit me pretty hard, the guy was clearly super troubled and it appeared like his family etc had all given up on him which is why he turned to the internet. He had quite a few friends online who were genuinely trying to help him out, sending him money, helping him find a place to sleep etc. His life story could really have gone either way, so it sucks it came to this.

RIP Terry.

 

[PSlayer]

RIP my boy Terry.

 

[zeioIIDX]

Holy crap. I gave a presentation on him and TempleOS in one of my computer classes a few years back. Fascinating guy, rest in peace Terry.

 

[Red Crayon Aristocrat]

While you can't help but laugh at some of the crazy things he said, mental illness is no joke and this is a tragic story.

RIP Terry.

 

[Hudo]

He wrote some of the early booking operating systems systems for Ticketmaster. Schizophrenia is always terrible, but it's even more tragic knowing this guys genius was put to such waste.

Looking at his OS and software is fascinating. Some of it is clearly just him re-creating common features seen in Unix and Linux, but you also get things like his document format, his weird JIT re-compiler implementation, and his 3D renderer, which are just so alien in their methodology. But it gives you an idea that this guy could pretty much do anything he put his mind to, and under different circumstances could have been another Linus or Tim Sweeney.

Word of warning - his video's are pretty messed up, he claims to have done all sorts of horrific things which I won't repeat here. He generally flicks between being a harmless autistic and an offensive risk to society at random. One minute he's just filming himself awkwardly buying 20 bottles of Pepsi, and the next he's claiming he's being followed by 'CIA N*****s' and says he ran one over once and got away with it.

His death hit me pretty hard, the guy was clearly super troubled and it appeared like his family etc had all given up on him which is why he turned to the internet. He had quite a few friends online who were genuinely trying to help him out, sending him money, helping him find a place to sleep etc. His life story could really have gone either way, so it sucks it came to this.

RIP Terry.

Interesting stuff. Do you know if there's any documentation or similar on his 3D renderer? A naive Google search gave me nothing.