GaryOPA

But the struggle is over and now my proper chair has arrived and it's at the right height for me and wide enough as well.

Thanks everyone for your support and good wishes!

Finally a proper wheelchair has arrived...

It took a whole week, dealing at first with my broken chair, then a crappy replacement which was too low to the ground for me, and too hard to move around in, and then yesterday UPS claimed I was home, when clearly I was.

And now trying to get some work done over the weekend and Monday, with this low chair, it does have nice wheels, but its not for me, at all, and with 3 cushions on it not safe to move around in either.

At least the company already refunded me for the broken one, and told me to scrap it, so I took off the parts that were usable, and recycled the rest.

I have another one coming on Tuesday from the company, and then I going to return this one, hopefully this new one will be at the right height, but sadly also is a lot more costly as well.

I feel like I am back in a kindergarten class with my knees up too high and my ass too low, this is not the right chair for me being a 6 foot 4 inch body.

This new one I got delivered to me finally on Friday is too low to the ground, I have to sit on 3 thick seat cushions just to be able to reach the keyboard at my desk to type and do some work.

Wheelchair Saga Continues...

Finding a new proper wheelchair is tough to replace the one that suddenly broke a few days ago after using it daily for 2 years.

Lucky enough, thanks to the donations I received and the paying work from clients, I was able to order a newer model of my broken chair with better wheels, and I will now be complaining to the manufacturer in regard to their 5 year warranty, since it's only been 2 years for a complete replacement.

But sadly, that ADP program and paperwork takes 16 weeks for approval, and another 8 weeks after that for one of their approved vendors to deliver your new chair, so I will be waiting a few months.

Donate to GaryOPA Restarting His Life, organized by Gary Bowser Hello everyone, my name is Gary Bowser aka GaryOPA as many of you know I am now in the process… Gary Bowser needs your support for GaryOPA Restarting His Life

I have already applied for a better wheelchair via the Ontario Government Assisted Devices Program, in which they will cover 75% of the cost, and my ODSP will cover the remaining 25%.
gofund.me/fddd3f05

Well, it finally happened, after a solid 2 years of daily usage, I am now laying on the floor looking up at my ceiling, after the wheel just suddenly totally cracked off my mobility chair. At least I wasn't hurt.

Sadly due to many crazy events in my own life I don't have any family photos of my parents, so since my father was named "Garfield" and he always loved reading the comic strip. I decided to honor his memory today, by using AI technology to generate an image for this "in memoriam of" posting of mine.

When my mother died during the '80s, I started by business, while I was still in my teens, and I was basically the breadwinner, covering the monthly bills and looking after my dad, as he had already retired by then, and his pension only went so far in covering the household expenses.

Until he retired in the '80s, is one of the main reasons I am into TI computers, and still today building new things with my mind and hands.

In the later years my dad spent many an hour typing up his memoir and he used to help me write the technical manuals for my OPA products that I was producing.

So today I honor the angels that have looked over me during my moments of weakness and the memory of my father whom was an amazing engineer and his love and passion to invent and work with the latest technology as part of his long career working with some of biggest companies back in the '50/'60/'70

I got about 20 miles out of town, before amazing enough an neighbor just happened to be traveling along the lonely Dominican road in her scooter, and she bought my drunk ass home, otherwise I don't know what would had happened to me sadly walking along the highway in the dead of the dark night.

I found out about his death which was during Christmas time, so I ended up drinking a whole bottle of his favorite Scotch whiskey at the Xmas party I was attending, and then tried left in the middle of the night and attempted to walk to Canada by following the full moon that sad night.

Happy Birthday To My Beloved Father "Garfield"

Today, would had been my dad's 95th birthday, but sadly he passed away, while I was living in Dominican Republic, so I never got to say goodbye at his funeral.

Well, one fellow TI99'er answered that call, and gave me three wonderful books that were extras in their library.

Maybe for fun today, as I relax I will type in one of these TI BASIC programs printed and run it and record a video to share with everyone later on.

Sunday Is Relaxing Book Reading Day

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about my love of books related to my passion for retro computing, and that I was open to receiving donations of more Texas Instruments related books for my library.

I also have a deep love and passion for #SciFi shows, and I was a member of the "Eye Of Harmony" club here in Toronto for many years and I used to love helping out at the various SciFi fan conventions before Comic-Com took it all over and commercialized them. 😓

So I recently, picked up the 10 Disc DVD collection and I am now enjoying and catching up on what I have missed during my prison downtime.

Besides, my love for Texas Instruments Home Computers and my childhood love for HO scale model railroad trains.

Physical media rules, because more and more shows are getting zapped from various streaming services.
I am a lifetime #DoctorWho fan and never got to complete the 13th Doctor (Jodie) years as it only aired while I was in Federal Custody and since my return to Canada it's no longer available anymore.

Today, I've been busy testing physical read and write floppy operations on 5.25" diskettes and drives for the new 838-FDC card designed for the TI99. Making some great progress in figuring out the remaining bugs in the new DSR coding and the interfacing to the WD1772 replacement.

I was bored last night so I designed my own custom #FunkoPop thingy, what do you think?
I wish there was a retro console as an accessory instead of just a laptop.
I wonder if I could get them mass-produced and sell autographed ones to my fans and supporters.

Support GaryOPA Support GaryOPA

So today is the day I have now setup a Ko-Fi page and will use the funds raised via it, to improve my current TePhOS release and to support on-going new TI99 projects that I am busy working on daily for all to enjoy!

Support GaryOPA and Retro Hobbyist TI99 Projects!

Recently my supporters have been suggesting I should setup a Ko-Fi to be able to accept donations and to also help promote my on-going hobbyist work that I am doing with my retro Texas Instruments projects.
ko-fi.com/garyopa

I am hoping that by reading in the direct raw flux from an actual diskette will give us some clues on what is going wrong, so that this weird bug can be smashed.

The bug is that last 9 or 18 (256 byte) sectors are NOT readable, on a floppy disc is after formatting as Double/Sided, the weird thing is that it does not occur with Single/Sided formats.