When i first got my ti89 it didn't have the ability to save archived programs and i didn't think it was possibile with any calculator at the time... then one day... i updgraded and found i no longer lost my programs after a reset and smq didn't work... well i'll take programs always being their over playing smq anyday :P

Hmm... I remember reading complaints in the mailing list archives about having archived data lost after a crash back in the early days of the 89--after all, what was the purpose of Flash ROM if it got erased after a reset? Was that AMS 1.xx that did that?

Oops, "...what was the purpose of Flash ROM if it got erased..." should read "...what was the purpose of Flash ROM if the Flash archive got erased..."

I believe there was a program you could immeidately load onto it that would retrieve the files, they were still there but the OS didn't have any way to find out where they were in the ROM...

You mean something that restored the VAT? I guess that *would* work with the flash as long as it doesn't do a full clear and directly set every mem location to 0, which I doubt it does.

I usually download a new OS after ticalc announces it. Plus I also wait until TI actually updates the OS page :-)

No, because I'm too damn lazy and scared to use my computer with win98 again...who knows what evil lurks inside that thing!