GBAtemp Extraordinaire: 5 questions to a legendary Temper - Jayro
Since 2002, GBAtemp has been a community-powered site, and nothing is more important to the site than its user base. With this new editorial feature, we're bringing the spotlight to you! We've decided to ask a set of simple questions to a Legendary Temper: a long-standing member of the community, someone who has made important contributions, or who bears significance to the history of the site or the forums. This may include staff and non-staff members. We'll try to make this a weekly feature, but with over 500,000 members now, it may take a while for you to be featured
In this week's edition, we've decided to pay a visit to our dear Jayro, one of the most prominent members of our community, creator of the famous Medicat tools (such as Medicat USB) and founder of the Gameboy Modding! group.
- Who are you, and what do you do in real life?
Fast-forward to high school, and my love for computers only grew fonder. I got to use Windows 3.11 machines to draw in Paintbrush (Now known as MS Paint), play DOS games, and upgrade the internal hardware with free parts I was given. After graduating from high school, I decided to further my education in computers by attending Job Corps (A trade school) for a year in Astoria, Oregon (USA). I passed my year-long class there and got my CompTIA A+ hardware certification in Technician I and II. I then moved back to my hometown and got a job at the local PC repair shop, but that turned into a 3 month nightmare, and I didn't like it at all. Working under someone else, with their ridiculous rules on "how" you can fix a customer's PC and what restricted tools and methods you can use really put me off. But I didn't let that crush my spirits. T'was nothing but a bump in the road for me. I kept-on and did freelance PC repair work for my friends, family, and extended friends outside my typical reach. Didn't ever pay too well, but it got me good experience, and I loved helping people fix their computers more than anything else. I liked working for myself and being my own boss much more.
But I always ran into the issue of never having the right tools with me, and having to download what I needed on-the-fly at a job site, which never quite sat right with me. I was like "There must be an easier way..." Then in 2012, I discovered a USB tool called YUMI. It let me customize a set of bootable tools onto a USB stick. Worked great at the time. Then I came across another tool that offered even more options called SARDU, and it allowed me to export my USB tools as a bootable DVD ISO image. And thus, MediCat DVD was born. Though I initially only kept it for myself, the fancy menus drew a lot of attention from people both online and offline, and many people suggested to me that I release it. And on the 2nd of February in 2014, I did just that... Right here on the 'Temp. After SARDU v3.x went and paywalled itself, I tried sticking with the outdated BIOS-only toolkit, but after more and more PCs went UEFI-only, I had to find another solution to get UEFI support going... So in early summer of 2020, I discovered a rapidly developing tool called "Ventoy". I made the drastic decision to completely restart MediCat from scratch, and rebrand MediCat DVD as "MediCat USB". And well, the rest is history.
But MediCat USB and fixing computers are just a couple cornerstones to my life. I love going camping, I'm intrigued with the paranormal, I love getting into deep political discussions, I love retro gaming and emulation, I love building arcades, I enjoy doing freelance graphic design, I've gotten familiar with 3D printing in the past year, I love building Raspberry Pi projects, and I really enjoy soft-modding various game consoles. I'm quite adept at soldering, and love tinkering with various solder jobs. As a kid, my parents didn't have a lot of money to buy us 4 kids game consoles, so we each got a Gameboy instead and that also kept the TV free for my parents.
Unfortunately, my brother passed away on the 5th of March in 2020 in a fatal car crash from having a seizure behind the wheel on his way to work. This happened right before the COVID lockdowns began; And as a direct result, we couldn't have any kind of funeral, memorial, or anything to get any proper closure. So to keep my mind off things and keep the depression to a minimum, I took up Gameboy modding. It's been 2 years in, and I still love it. I've built up an incredible Etsy shop, I've been able to sell some 3D printed Gameboy parts, and I have even sold a fair bit of my homebrew on physical cartridges.
"It's not much, but it's honest work."
I am currently employed at a grocery store to make my rent and bills, just facing store shelves to look nice as they get messed up throughout the day. I'm a father to a beautiful Lynx-point Siamese cat named Leonardo DiCatPurrio, I have a lovely girlfriend named Evelyn, and our small little family dwells within the wooded area of South-West Washington state in the United States. I love living here in the Pacific Northwest, and would eventually love to tour the rest of the USA and western Europe. I really hope this gives you some insight as to who I am as a person, beyond just the screen.
- How did you find yourself joining GBAtemp?
- What's the most exciting/interesting/crazy thing or event that you've witnessed throughout your GBAtemp years?
And of course, whenever the forums moved to new hardware and to the new XenForo platform, that was also VERY exciting to see happen. I was very happy for you guys, and thankful the transition went fairly smooth for you all.
- What part of the video game industry are you currently interested in, or excited about?
- Do you have a message for the staff, an opinion you want to share with the community, or anything else you would like to say?
Thanks for reading and we hope you enjoyed this new editorial feature. If you think you qualify for Legendary Temper, feel free to leave a comment in this thread and your turn may eventually come.
Last edited by Costello,
C64.... Still makes me weak at the knees!! 
