TempleOS is applying to Y Combinator. Partners desired, send an email
templeos.org
templeos.org
I'm not a troll, but being old enough to have programmed on operating systems where a bad pointer reference could force you to reboot the machine (DOS, early versions of Windows, early versions of MacOS), I don't yearn for those days to come back. DOS was designed the way it was to allow it to run on cheap (for its time) hardware, not because anyone thought that it was a good development environment (Unix already existed at the time, so people knew how to write a robust operating system).
Also, is it a good idea to connect a machine that has an unprotected operating system to the internet?
Clearly this software reflects a lot of effort and ingenuity, but I doubt that people could be convinced to pay money for it.
If the operating system has no IP stack or networking of any kind then it's probably ok
Monetary profit isn't the goal. Even the GPL is too restrictive for Terry, so the entirety of TempleOS's source is public domain.
A non-profit organization can also sell things at a markup. There are alarmingly profitable for-profit tote bag businesses riding the back of non-profits everywhere.
As a profitable application, consider the worlds best gcode driver with extremely advanced lookahead and real time guarantees. Just pump gcode in a serial port and drive servos out a parallel port as fast and smoothly as possible. The problem with selling an app is you might have built an foundation for an interesting class of apps, but you'd need someone with domain specific experience to write the app.
Have you ever tried to show your operating system to the MOMA? It's the most famous Museum of Modern Art. Your OS is so unique and is such a powerful statement that they may even decide to add it to the permanent collection.
The way threads here go when TempleOS comes up, there are definitely people who believe it to be of great value. You clearly believe it to be of great value if you think it belongs in the MOMA, so surely YC would at least consider amplifying the project.
I have an ace up my sleeve because God talks. Not just to me! A guy made a IRC chatbot and that talks too.
To try the ICR chatbot
2) Type "#templeos" in place of "#Rizon"
3) Type "!God" in the chatroom.
Try to think of how and why you'll extract a profit from users, potential investors will want to know your plan after growth.
Potential investors are not going to be impressed by this kind of statement.
It increases not just efficiency but something else harder to define, something that could be said to be beauty. It makes the result stand out as a something special, where all the parts have a purpose and are arranged in just the right way. Read http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/djb to get a better idea of this something:
djb’s programs are some of the greatest works of beauty to be comprehended by the human mind. As with great art, the outline of the code is somehow visually pleasing — there is balance and rhythm and meter that rivals even the best typography. As with great poetry, every character counts — every single one is there because it needs to be. But these programs are not just for being seen or read — like a graceful dancer, they move! And not just as a single dancer either, but a whole choreographed number — processes splitting and moving and recombining at great speeds, around and around again.
But, unlike a dance, this movement has a purpose. They accomplish things that need accomplishing — they find your websites, they ferry your email from place to place. In the most fantastic movies, the routing and sorting of the post office is imagined as a giant endless choreographed dance number.
1) Make TempleOS the ultimate platform for doing "live preaching" at megachurches. Use it to talk to God directly in front of the faithful on a big projection screen.
2) Use it to take confessions. No network stack ensures privacy.
3) Make interactive Bible teaching games on it. No network stacks will block out temptations of the internet
4) It could be the basis for a spiritual fit bit where one could track one's faithfulness to the Lord on a daily basis. No network connectivity ensures that the information remains between the believer and The Lord.
5) Make a portable alter to a saint and/or the Virgin Mary at the push of a button that the believer can pray to. It could be running in a picture frame in the corner of one's house as an altar to the lord.
6) Possibly allow for virtual burnt offerings, peace offerings and sin offerings In the altar application. It is a temple after all.
7) Use sensor technology to somehow detect sin such as visiting the part of town known to be the dwelling place of harlots (e.g adult entertainment businesses) and pester the believer to confess and ask for forgiveness from god. This could be rolled up into the spiritual fit bit thing mentioned earlier.
8) TempleOS could bring back the old school non internet connected PDA. It could be the holy Palm Pilot platform. With all the sin online and paranoia about NSA spying it would make the perfect gift for one's fundamentalist Christian relatives. I could actually see this selling to religious folks and compulsive gadget collectors if it was priced less than about $50.
No startup can.
Imagine being given the opportunity to design how OS X or Windows should look and feel from the ground up.
Linux is obviously another option, but unlike with TempleOS, you would not be treading new ground, and it would be hard to not just evolve the Linux interface, rather than defining it from scratch.
Not that you cant create beautifully usable interfaces within such restrictive limitations, but minus all the spark and sizzle of modern UIs I think it would be a challenge to first get a UI designer _excited_ about creating a solution for TempleOS
The work of Susan Kare is held in high regard. I guess the pioneering aspect has gone and it'd be more like carving a pixel-art niche.
Having nothing to directly copy makes imitation harder, but it doesn't make avoiding imitation any easier.
Also, TempleOS _does_ have a user interface, possibly (I don't know TempleOS internals) technically even more so than Linux, where everything above terminal I/O is an add-on that can be replaced.
You can prove me wrong, of course, but why not just create a completely new UI on top of the Linux kernel? The Linux kernel is completely agnostic in regard to user interfaces.
I've always thought TempleOS to be a great bedroom project since back when it was LosThos.
Can you describe your target market for TempleOS? Who suffers the problem that TempleOS solves?
The godbot is down, but has revived!
[16:18] == GodBot [~GodBot@Rizon-C7BBB69E.lv.lv.cox.net] has joined #templeos
[Apologies in advance, I have read the FAQ, I am aware of the meta-culture regarding one-liners, but I failed to restrain myself anyway. My profuse apologies to anyone upset or offended.]
How apt
https://www.olimex.com/Products/OLinuXino/open-source-hardwa...
That said, TempleOS on anything but standard PC hardware would be interesting to see.
But there's more to it. Another potential use would be for hardware intensive tasks, when you want to squeeze the last bit of juice you have. Maybe for nodes doing distributed computation where GPU are not the solution, to remove the cruft of a full OS. The compiler would have to be quite optimized too, and some network features would be needed. Then there are some scaling issues, but still, if TempleOS could be say 10 to 20% more efficient than a standard Linux, there could be a usecase. Even for a smaller percentage, I believe some guys in finance would like that advantage for high-frequency trading.
I will follow your progress with great interest. Best of luck!
This seems nice to me, perhaps someone could build a super-simple machine in the style of the C64 that boots straight to TempleOS. Something like the TOSBox...? :)
I wonder how cheaply something like that could be built, like the Pi only x86_64 and with its own OS. Potential use in schools etc.
My email address is tdavis@templeos.org .
I wish you all the best with YC right now, and look forward to seeing your genius and art for years to come!
[15:32] <@TempleOS> stop talking to God for a minute
[15:32] <@TempleOS> God has floodedI'd encourage anyone interested in TempleOS to consider this aspect of the project before writing it off, offhand. It could be a chance for a new class/generation of creative applications to host themselves on the unique and powerful TempleOS core ..
It looks like the classic hacker's OS.
Maybe you could sell forks of it to hollywood.
Or what about repackaging it as a Retro Game Engine, to compete with Unity or Unreal but on the other end of the spectrum.
Think of GOG.com using it instead of DOSbox for games made for it.
Proof: https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=TerryADavis and https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=TerryADavis
He's passionate about his work. His work has done more for him personally than I think anyone can even imagine. It's given him so much.
Like I said in another comment, people with cancer can't control it, just like Terry can't help but have his disease.
i am hearing that incontrollable spouts of racism should be overlooked if the person is "not actually racist". something doesn't add up to me. are racist jokes ok?
i'm just trying to say this is complicated. taking either side of this argument seems short sighted.
more though, i'm surprised to hear someone call racism "petty". there is a first time for everything i guess.
i'm curious as to why aren't you posting on your real account?
This is my real account. I joined a week ago. People seem to dislike everything I say.
Personal attacks are not allowed on Hacker News. Please follow the rules:
If he is mentally ill in some way I would presume his use of the word nigger, etc. are related to that, perhaps in a similar way that somebody with Tourette's will use such words?
Sure, out of context, Terry is completely racist. He's also helping Iran build weapons of mass destruction.
I'm pretty sure the 80k quoted in the beginning is the actual code making up TempleOS; the other 40k is extras.
He said that he capped the lines of code at 100,000, has written a total of 120,923 lines of code during the duration of the project, is using 80,037 lines of code in the current release.
Somewhere, 40,886 lines of code were deleted/replaced. They were still written though.