Well I started (re)learning ASM today, and I was actually understanding most of it, but I had one question: Is there a way to store a variable (for example: a hi score) without using an appvar?

Well, if you're coding for an ION-compatible shell, all changes to your program during execution are saved. If you're going no-stub, you can always locate the original copy of your program in memory and save the bytes there (when running nostub, your program's name is in OP1, ready for lookup).

Aren't you limited to 8.x KB of executable code when using Ion?

Yeah Nostub is worse for that. Does Mirage and APPs solve this issue, tho?

For ASM programs, the problem is the *executable* code that you're limited to. From the first post, I assume you're trying to store *data*. As long as the material isn't executed, but only read, you can easily go higher than that "limit". A couple of the large games out there (Gemini, Joltima, etc) makes use of this fact by putting pretty much ALL of the data at the end so that when the code is copied to the executable location, nothing is ever being *run* past the end of that limit...

Most specifically, it's addresses $C000-$FFFF that doesn't allow code execution, except under special circumstances that doesn't exist on the TI-83+ (non-SE calcs) and a few other lesser ones.

To further answer the first question, you can write back to your program in a defined space as opposed to some saferam value that doesn't get saved back with your program.

To further affirm some of the other responses in the thread, ION and a few other types of programs meant to run in shells will preserve changes (unless the user set the shell to not do so). Nostub by default doesn't save changes, as the program put at $9D95 is a temp (copy) program and is erased after the ASM program hands execution back to the OS.