My TI89 just trashed all my program files! HELP!

[pronatalist]

Where are they? Var-list is completely empty, except for the MAIN folder. BACKUP folder archived files are missing. Even my 99 last calculations are gone, although I don't miss those much. Not even the Graph screen image is there anymore, and I had a graphic file with dozens of icons squeezed into it, that my program loads upon initializing.

While making but a minor program enhancement and waiting for it to recompile/check, my TI89 just suddenly went blank, and would not turn back on. I pressed ON several times, and grabbed my manual, flipped to the troubleshooting section, and the only thing it suggested for calculator lock/up/freeze is to press ) and - while holding ON, and pull a battery out. Still didn't power up properly. So finally I put in a new set of batteries, and still had to try again pressing all those buttons to get it to power up. Finally came up, with all the sacred TI OS intact except for some pre-loaded Flash Application that I never used anyway, and all my valuable program fills missing.

My programs were getting really cool, loaded with quotes, a Calendar that calculates correctly most every holiday I could think of, file icons and custom clock icons. I was running into memory restrictions though, and some parts ran painfully slow, so at least I added a couple of really cool progress thermometer bars. But I seriously doubt that I have time to start over from scratch, as I had been working on them for years.

Yeah, I know we should backup, like about every other day, to another device such as my Mac Mini, but my old iMac hard-drive died last year, and the TI software prevented it from accessing the internet so I had to deactivate it, and I figured out that by linking multiple program files together to function as one, I could get around the silly 30K or so program editor limit, and I just didn't have time to fool with all that. I didn't get my Mac Mini set up, until after my calculator crashed. Now I wish I had. (And no doubt I will need to download new TI-Mac software, as the CD that came with my TI-connection kit has got to be too old for an Intel 10.4.7 Tiger Intel Mac Mini?) I thought about "upgrading" to a TI89 Titanium, but I don't like the new styling look, and thought its enhancements were relatively minor. But if I had bought an extra calculator, I probably would have linked them up, and had me a spare copy of my files. Or I wish I had done that.

And surely archiving an extra copy to flash memory, does count as a "backup," just so long as I don't drop my calculator or leave it somewhere?

I want back the files my calculator STOLE from me! And didn't I just read that 2.0 was supposed to protect archived files upon crash? Really? So where are they?

Looks like maybe I had some bad Panasonic batteries that suddenly died without any warning, but why did it trash my files?

What can I do, or what should I have done?

Is there any chance of piecing together a text-fragment-file-recovery by programming an Assembly PEEK(Memory) function? Is my entire memory wiped, or merely the file directory? And I know to be careful about writing any new files onto memory that could overwrite data I want to recover, until I figure out what to do. Gee, I don't want just a plain-vanilla calculator, I want my cool programs back! Any chance of downloading some Undelete utility?

Should I just give up programming now, since these evil computered gadgets lie and say, "Oh give us your data, we will keep it nice and safe for you." And then they break, get lost, crash, or otherwise lose it all in just a few years?

BTW, assuming I can somehow magically get my files back, I was really wondering how to do some program tricks, that apparently are available at least in Assembly, which I haven't got into yet, other than on my old Apple //e computer, and a little 8088 Assembly I think it was.

I want to rename the buttons on the bottom of the TI-Basic Dialogs, to rather than say boring CANCEL, OK; to say SAVE, or EDIT, or something more meaningful. Or better yet, make them go away but still work via OK=0 or 1, so I can get more than 11 lines of text in the Dialog not counting the Title. How do I Title Popup menus, as in the system CHAR menu? And another big one, I want to Grayout individual menu items in Dropdown, Toolbar, and Custom. Knocking out every other character and replacing it with a space, really looks tacky. I want the checkerboard pattern Grayout, or even better yet, Grayscale if possible. I know the TI system can checkerboard its own menu items, as I have seen them. I already know how to Grayout with the checkerboard pattern, on the Graph pixel screen. I simply AndPic with a properly-sized checkerboard pixel mask. But that doesn't work except if I bother to "draw" and program my own menu-handling, which by polling (GetKey) the keyboard and not entering a power-conserving wait/standby mode, eats up the AAA batteries?

[mellamokb]

Hi pronatalist,

Welcome to TI-89 forums!

Indeed, if you had to take your batteries out of the calculator to break out of a locked condition, the RAM is cleared. The calculator has two types of memory: RAM and FLASH ROM. All of your graph images, icons, variables, programs, etc. are normally stored in RAM. Think in terms of a computer; if you shut off your computer, all of your RAM (i.e., current open programs' data) is lost, but your hard drive's data is still intact. The calculator keeps almost everything in RAM, so taking the batteries out or anything like that may clear out that RAM.

When you shut off your calculator, the calculator is not actually off, but just enters a low-power mode to conserve energy. Your calculator is always on and running (otherwise you would have RAM cleared every time you shut your calculator off like your computer). Anything that is truly "archived" is written to FLASH ROM and should be left intact after a calculator reset. Since the TI OS is stored in ROM, resetting the calculator does not destroy the built-in operating system. As far as your so-called lost variables from "archive", I doubt they were actually archived, but just in RAM, unless your calculator ran some freaky code that erased or degraded the state of the ROM.

Calculators are simple enough devices that "undelete" utilities and other ROM-examining tools are not important enough for commercial software-designers to take into consideration. Common sense should tell you that a calculator is really not the place to put important things! I don't know much about recovery techniques, so you are on your on as far as that goes.

A much better solution for protecting your calculator besides backing the files up is to use a virtual TI emulator to test your programs while you are writing them. A computer-based emulator runs the virtual "calculator" in a protected area that is unable to damage your computer, but if your so-called "calculator" has its ROM damaged, you can simply "factory reset" the calculator because it's only virtual. Having a virtual TI is legal only for the TI calculators you actually possess.

You've asked a lot of "I want" questions. I am really the only active person on this forum; if you see a feature you would like implemented or a functionality available in BASIC, create it! You will help the whole TI community and yourself, because the limitations of TI calculators are enough that not too many people are interested in software or hardware solutions for it except for pleasure (time investment yielding very little profit).

Please also try to shorten your posts in the future. I'm one of few people that cares enough to wade through a long post, and asking so many questions without giving back to the community with your answers is very rude. Thank you!

Hope this helps you in some way!

~ mellamokb