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@bowser-garyopa
One Positive Step At A Time In Rebuilding My Life!
Another goal post has been reached, last month ODSP approved me getting an hospital bed and yesterday it was finally installed in my condo.
This will greatly help my lymphedema in my left leg and for hopefully my surgery soon.
Thanks to everyone that sent me good thoughts and prayers for my 57th birthday yesterday.
I spent it quietly with close family and friends, nothing special as it was a rainy and chilly day.
Looking back at everything in my life recently, it's been one dynamic adventure, and I am lucky to have some caring friends and to be able to continue my love and passion for the Texas Instruments TI99 Computers.
My restarting journey is not over yet, still lots to get done in improving my health and overall wellness, but I think we made some good progress during the 3 years I have now been back in Canada with my freedom.
Looking forward to having many more birthdays and to continue on life's adventure and making new friends.
May 2026 has finally arrived, but it's still a bit on the chilly side, hopefully when my birthday comes up on the 12th, the weather will be nice to have an outdoor party in the park like I did last year.
Looking forward to my 56th birthday as it will mark basically the end of my 3rd year of freedom and also the end of my federal probation, so I will be even able to enjoy more Canadian freedom and independence.
Many thanks to everyone that gathered together and promoted my GoFundMe campaign during April to reach the $25k goal milestone before my birthday.
Every bit helps me towards improving my overall health and well-being, so please continue to help spread the word about my story and rebuilding of my life.
April was a crazy busy month in getting things on track for improving my health and quality of life, soon I will be receiving a custom powered wheelchair finally, and also a proper hospital bed, and some more renovations to my condo as well to make it easier for me to get around and live by myself with less stress.
But the struggle is never over, I got to keep on pushing and moving forward, and staying positive and continue on the path of improving my health and overall well-being, so I can focus my mind more on various retro projects for the Texas Instruments hobbyist community that have also been supportive during the last 3 years
Thanks again everyone for your donations, the Tumblr community has been good in their support and kind words, so all the best wishes to everyone there, and thanks again for all your kind messages, prayers and thoughts.
-=(GaryOPA)=-
P.S. The above photo is an AI mockup of me sitting in the park with my new wheelchair for my birthday, looking forward to taking a real photo of myself during that happy birthday celebration event coming up in 12 days.
Sun Is Shining On GaryOPA Upgraded Workshop
May is almost here. Sunny Spring Days have finally started in Canada.
And here at OPA headquarters, we have completed some much needed upgrades to our little workshop packed away in the very sunny Den of my condo in Scarberia.
It's going to be a learning curve for me as I am going to start assembling soon a bunch of FinalGrom99 cartridges for our beloved TI99 retro computer community, but I have never done tiny SMT soldering before, but I think I have got all the required equipment now installed, like microscope, hot plate & stencil.
Any tips or advice from fellow hobbyists that have done SMT work is much appreciated, as I am a total noobie in this field.
Thanks again for all the support and encouragement recently.
Lots of small things have been happening in April to make my daily life a bit easier.
My ODSP caseworker finally approved for me to have an emergency toilet thingy and with recent donations to my GoFundMe allow me to get an affordable mini-fridge.
So I have now, rearranged my tiny but cute bedroom area and even hooked up an Atari 7800+ console to my 32" TV. Along with a small movable table for my old laptop, this will allow me to relax, but still do some online work on those bad days I can't even get out of my bed due to my lymphedema in my left leg giving me too much pain.
Having the toilet now next to my bed reminds me a bit like my tiny old prison cell that I spent 40 months in, but I am blessed to be just over a month away from 3 years of Canadian freedom and I am very much looking forward to my 56th birthday soon along with warmer spring days in May.
Thanks all for your prayers & thoughts!
Hey I looked up your net worth and itās in the millions. Why are you e begging with a fake sob story man. Get a life get a hobby do anything productive that isnāt scamming people.
Haha very funny. I do have a hobby, I have been working on my original love and passion for the Texas Instruments Home Computers, while focusing on improving my health and staying positive, even with silly online trolling comments. Here is the lowdown on my 'net worth', so not sure what disinformation you read!
March is just flying by, soon it will be April showers that bring May flowers.
Finally, this month in the progress of making my daily life easier, I was able to have grab bars installed, along with an new shower bench in my bathroom.
Thanks everyone for your prayers & thoughts!
Bowser Wishes Everyone A Happy Mar10 Day!
Its been a while since my last social media post, time is just flying by, I can't believe we are already into 3rd month of year 2026, anyway on this nice and warm Mario day, I like to give everyone a progress update on my overall health and what's been happening recently.
I now have a PSW coming 3 times a week to help me with daily chores like showers, laundry, etc. And a nurse coming twice a week to wrap my leg with compression bandages in the hope it will slowly help to reduce it.
I also now have fresh meal coming each day for launch, and weekly a box of frozen meals for my dinner, here hoping after a few months on this diet I will lose at least 100 pounds and get down to around 250 at least, it is tough getting used to it, but at least its all covered between United Way and my "disability benefits", so that will save me money at least each month on groceries, I only need to buy food for my Sunday's.
I also finished all my doctor's appointments over the last month which I was keeping me busy, no more until early April, so now hopefully I can catch up on some Texas Instruments retro projects for my beloved TI-99/4a Home Computer that I been working on recently.
Other good news, is with the recently appointments and at home visit by my OT, I have gotten the paperwork started and approvals coming down the line for various things I need to make my life easier, for one there going to be an "custom power wheelchair" delivered by March 26th, and also March of Dimes is working on giving me "home renovation" grant so I can make things better, like adding a ramp in my backyard, and making my bathroom door wider, and installing a tub with cut-out in it, that should all occur sometime in April.
My ODSP caseworker has also passed along other requests from my OT for things like a new shower chair, and recliner to rest my legs on when relaxing, and medical bed as well which should help my legs when sleeping.
Its been a tough road, but finally I am starting to see some good progress being made via the Canadian healthcare system, it has taken a while since I been back in Canada since June 2023, so we are coming up to the 3 year mark, but now that the wheels have started moving, many things are happening all at once.
Looking forward to the warmer weather that started last weekend, but sadly this week we might have a little blast of snow again, but soon it will be April, and then coming up in May my birthday, and I think by then everything I mentioned above and more will have been put in place, so looking forward to having a great one!
And thanks for all the positive thoughts and prayers!
It's time for progress report on the 838-FDC...
Currently, getting back into the flow of some major coding to finalize things up, as many of you know I had some health issues last month, but I am back on track, and getting to regular schedule of daily coding and testing now.
All the issues with FPGA replacement for WD1772 been resolved, everything is running smoothly now on TI99 system with formatting, reading, writing floppy diskettes in both 5.25" and 3.5" on various physical and gotek drives.
Work now is on verifying that "high-density" 1.44mb can be fully supported on the TI99, I been hard at work on writing some very compact and tight assembly code to all fit within the 256 bytes of scratchpad, as we need as much speed as possible on the /4A to transfer 36 sectors of data per track.
What I am doing now is writing more test programs, and then comparing results between the 838-FDC and a Geneve with HFDC (which is currently the only other controller that can handle 1.44mb diskettes), but only on Geneve!
I hope to post up video later on this weekend, showing the test program, reading a physical 1.44mb diskette that been filled up with data on Geneve first, on a /4A and without any errors or other issues.
Next step after that is to do the opposite fill up a new diskette with bunch of files on the /4A and then read/compare the data back on Geneve to have it again without any errors or other issues.
Once those two steps have been done by me and verified by Shift838 as well on couple of different systems and setups, then we will be opening up pre-orders for the card.
It also has been decided to leave the hardware design with SMT as-is, without reducing it more, I was looking at possible changes to reduce the amount of parts, but that would add more work for end-user, as it would require modding your drives to support auto-switching, as not all drives output the density signal on pin 2, and also it would remove the option of using an existing Ajax chip or regular WD1772 chip, forcing the card to only use the FPGA, and not everyone "cost-wise" and for other reasons might want that.
That's all for now, will be updating and posting more updates on regular basis now, that I got my routine done health-wise, with my new diet, and 3 PSW visits per week, and 2 nurses per week. One step at a time, and staying positive and moving forward!
In the meantime, Shift838 and I have a bunch of other cool projects in the works, so stay tuned to his channel for more great TI99/Geneve news in the coming weeks and months!
Slowly... One Step At A Time... Another Health Update...
As most of you know, reading my blog, I had some major issues with my left leg, more so than normal back in January, and I ended up in the Scarberia Emergency during a Canadian snowstorm blizzard as well...
Since then, I had more problems, with ODSP placing my disability file on hold, which meant no "payment" for January, that was super tough, I ended up with less than 10 loonies to my name, but I was able to get thru the month.
Now as of yesterday, I had to more follow-up doctor's appointments with specialists, of course in Canada Health Care is slow, so that only caused some more appointments to be scheduled during the February and into March, one of which will be CT Scan to see if there is any issues in my hip and stomach area that could be causing my chronic lymphedema in my left leg to get worse. (Praying for good news when that occurs, and they don't find like a tumor or something inside me!)
Some good news on the "At Home Care" side, since my trip to the to Emergency Dept. the Ontario government, decided to that I should finally have an PSW, 3 times a week to help with my showers and such things, and recently they decided to add a 4th longer visit during the week to help with household chores like laundry and cleaning.
And lastly, in fighting to get my ODSP back, which today was finally approved after an "internal review", and assigning me a new "caseworker", that I should also be getting once a day a "hot prepared meal" for lunch that fits my special diet, and weekly a box of "frozen prepared dinners" also made for my health needs, all of which ODSP has agreed to cover as well expense wise.
This should help me "lose some weight" and also reduce my monthly expenses on groceries, now all I have to worry about is items for a lite breakfast, and drinks, and my coffee (can't live without my coffee!).
I had my first meal delivered today to me, sadly it reminds me a bit like being in "prison" the food, but hey that is one good thing that did occurred while I was in federal custody for 32 months, the "prison diet" did cause me to lose 150 pounds, and sadly I regain that back once I returned to Canada over the last 2 years, so hopefully, going back to controlled "special diet" will help me get rid of that excess which in turn will help my walking and overall health and well-being.
And even tho the food and tastes and looks the same as "prison" trays, at least I have my freedom now in Canada, and can look out my windows, all tho there is still tons of snow on the ground and its still cold, but at least the days are getting longer again, and its not dark by 4pm anymore. (I miss the tropical DR winters!)
Looking forward to seeing what the doctors say at my next appointment which has been scheduled for next Thursday, in the meantime taking it one step at a time, and trying to love the taste of bland prison food again!
Thanks as well, to all those that supported me last month, your kind wishes and donations really helped!
eeww stinky ai user !! chatgpt alone has killed nine people and ai contributes to the ruination of our earth but ig you're to lazy to do anything yourself, i hope you next decide to ask your toaster how to bathe
Well, if we're trading wild claims, I've got to say: AI hasn't killed anyone (last I checked, no rogue terminators on the loose), but it has saved countless lives through medical advancements and disaster predictions. As for the environment, yeah, data centers guzzle energy, but so does pretty much every tech we rely onālet's chat solutions instead of shade. And hey, my toaster's advice? "Plug in and chill." Stay curious, anon!
(Yes, I used AI to reply, as you're not worth my time)....
Being Groundhog day, I decided to ask Gemini 3 to write me a program to fit the theme that would run on a Texas Instruments TI-99/4a Home Computer in Extended Basic.
It didn't do too bad of a job, it make a couple of minor mistakes, once those errors were fixed, the program ran perfectly.
For more info, and to see the AI output, see my AtariAge Thread about it: https://forums.atariage.com/topic/387960-ground-hog-day-in-extended-basic-as-written-by-gemini-3-ai/
Finally, got the red LED original Texas Instruments TI Programmer calculator.
But what kind of battery is this? It has a 9 volt type connector and 2 pin plug on the side? Can I recharge it? What do I use as a replacement?
Can't wait to do some hexadecimal and binary math on it!
An quick Health Update after my very painful & long visit to the nearby Scarberia Emergency Hospital last Friday.
My upper part of my left leg, where I torn my hamstrings from too much stress and such on my bad leg, looks still horrible, but it is slowly healing, and each day the pain to stand, walk, sleep is less and less, so that is good.
Also good is that, I now finally have a PSW (at home care worker), coming 3 times a week for an hour, to help me with hard painful things to do like showers, and such.
I should had one from day one for last 2 years, since getting a stable roof over my head and my return to Canada, but it takes forever with this Ontario government to get anything approved for your health.
I also have specialists appointments coming up on the 2nd and 5th during the first week of February, to see what else I need "at home" with help or devices to make my overall life easier, and at the Scarberia clinic to see if there is finally some form of surgery they can do to make my leg at least better in having less massive hardened and swelling of my lymph tissue on my leg.
I have tried specialists before when I first got back to Canada, and they basically push me off and didn't want to help, but this is different clinic I am going to in February, so maybe these doctors will be better and can recommend some form of surgery or treatment.
The only thing that has helped in the past is costly physiotherapy, and so far the Ontario government hasn't been willing to cough up the money for it, because my condition is chronic, not something that can be resolved in 3 months of weekly treatment with a physiotherapist.
You think after reading all the above things are going good and I am making progress, but sadly, its not all a bed of roses, just when you are down and you need more help, the government in all their wisdom has decided to place my ODSP on hold, and do a review, so this month is going to be super tough in covering my rent & paying my bills if I can't resolve it before the 31st.
Good thing is mentally I am strong, and I can handle the stress, just why does it happen when you have other things to worry about, but I have to stay positive and push thru this and move forward, taking it one day at time & pray that next 11 months of 2026 will be better.
Hello everyone, my name is Gary Bowser aka GaryOPA as many of you know I am now in the processā¦ Gary Bowser needs your support for GaryOPA R
The last couple of days I had too much pain in my left leg more so than normal, so yesterday I went to the Scarberia emergency, and after 10 hours I was basically given a shot of morphine and sent home, with now upcoming referrals to see specialists on what can be done, but it seems for now I basically torn my hamstrings in my left leg, so now my upper thigh is bruised and hurts like hell when I try doing simple things like lifting my leg onto the bed or moving in my wheelchair.
Starting Monday, 3 times a week I am going to have PSW come to my house to help me with basic things like showers, while I wait out this new problem to heal and hopefully get seen by the specialists sooner than later to see what more can be done for my leg to regain it's at least basic mobility I had before.
It's not going to be an easy month for me, not a great way to start 2026 at all. š
Jumpā¢ Presents: GaryOPA - How I Got To Today!
Jumpā¢ decided this weekend to sit down and do a nice interview with me! So sit back now and enjoy:
"Gary Bowser (aka) GaryOPA: How I Go To Today!"
Afterwards show your support via my #gofundme https://gofund.me/5c51b291