So you crashed your calculator, huh? Now what?

Here's a quick guide on getting those precious programs back.

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Step 0: Back up.

Easiest way to keep projects alive is to never lose them in the first place, so BACK UP. Especially if you're coding with Axe or ASM, always, always backup your progress whenever you can.

If you can't back up often for any reason, I highly recommend getting Calcsys on your calculator before anything bad every happens. It will make recovering programs much, much easier. Even if you can back up, it will save you in cases where your backups fail.

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Step 2: So what happened?

First, a reality check: Did your calculator really crash, or is the contrast just turned way down? Try pressing 2ND and hold down UP for a few seconds. And if that fixes it, don't worry, it's a pretty common mistake

Now we gotta figured out what happened. How'd you get to this point?

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Step 3: Getting your calc to work again

Some info you need to know at this point: When the calculator boots up again after a RAM clear or crash, there are several ways it can start up. Pressing ON by itself is the normal boot. Since your calculator can't do that, you'll need to try other options.

First, test to see if your boot code is still valid:

1. Take out a battery.
2. While still holding the battery in your hands, press and hold DEL. Hard.
3. Insert the battery while you're still holding down DEL.
4. It should give you a message waiting for an operating system transfer. If not, press ON and see if it appears.

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Step 4: Getting everything working

If you're here, it means you've turned your calculator on by CLEAR+ON. Now you've got to ask yourself this question: What to you want to recover?

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Step 5: Recovering with Calcsys

Calcsys is a very powerful tool, especially in dealing with the calculator's memory directly. Some of its features can be used to help recover programs, and here's one way to do it (for programs and groups).

First, take the name of the program and group you want to recover and convert it to hex code. To do this, find each letter in this table and record its column and row. For example, a program named HELLO would be 48454C4C4F. Write down the hex code for later reference.

Now start up Calcsys and go into 5. Console. It should give you a blank prompt that looks like a homescreen. Type "SEARCH " followed by the hex string you just found and press ENTER. (For that HELLO program above, this would be "SEARCH 48454C4C4F.") In a second or so, it should give you an answer in the form ####,## where the #s are hex digits (digits or letters from A to F). If it give you "Search Complete" instead, that means the variable you're trying to find isn't in the archive, and you can't recover it Otherwise, write the result down. Then press ENTER to see the next result and write it down. Keep doing this until it gives you "Search Complete" and returns to the prompt.



The list of numbers you just wrote down are a list of memory addresses. The two #s after the comma are the page number where it found that instance of the program's name, and the four #s before the comma point to the exact spot of memory on that page (between $4000 and $7FFF). Both numbers are in hex, and don't worry if you don't understand it

Now look through the list and find the entry with the largest page number. If there are several with the same number, look for the entry with the largest address number. Circle it.

Now type QUIT to go back to the main menu.

Now select 1. Hex Editor. It should greet you with a page full of hex digits and characters. If you've never seen anything of the sort before, don't worry, it's not that confusing once you get used to it.



Press ALPHA+[R]. It should prompt you for a page number. Type the two digits after the comma in the entry you just circled. What you just did is a page switch: Calcsys will now display the memory from that page of flash.



Now press ALPHA+[G]. When it prompts you, type the four digits before the comma in the entry you circled. You should probably understand what this does

See if the characters (starting on the second row) spell out the name of the program or group you're trying to recover. If it doesn't, you probably typed the page or address number wrong, so just try again.



Now press LEFT twice and UP twice.



Write down the four hex digits at the very top left of the screen and write it down. Then draw a box around it for reference.

Then press 2ND+[QUIT] to return to the home screen.



Now that you got your program/group back, send it to another calculator or computer IMMEDIATELY. Then open up the spoiler for "If you don't really care" under step 4 for final instructions. Enjoy!

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Step 6: Recovering without Calcsys


If you don't have TiLP, don't worry about installing it. It's not needed to dump your ROM; it just has a nice feature that makes it a lot easier.

Download this program (thanks to calcdude84se for making it) and send it to your calc. Make sure you send it to RAM!


All right, now you have a program DUMPPAGE on your calculator, whether you downloaded it or coded it yourself. Either way, do the following:

1. Make sure you have at least 16400 bytes of RAM free.
2. Run the program from your home screen with the line Asm(prgmDUMPPAGE) (find the Asm( token in 2ND+[CATALOG]).
3. When it displays "Type page no.," type "08."
4. Send the appvar it creates to a computer.
5. Delete the appvar.
6. Repeat steps 2 through 5, but typing a different page number each time instead of 0C:




The appvars created contain the entire archive memory of your calculator. You can then use them to search for and recover variables (if you know how) or find someone to help you do that.

Comments? Suggestions? Post 'em here.

Awesome so far! I wish I knew about Step 4 and what is gonna follow back in early 2002, when I worked on Illusiat 2002. The calc turning OFF issue happened to me and I lost the entire 79 KB Illusiat RPG I was working on back then :'( (Actually if it requires CalcSys I don't think CalcSys existed back then, though)

I read it all, and am excitedly waiting for the last step. ;-)

Nice!  Although I have cleared my RAM 86 times today.  I keep everything archived, no matter what.  I also have a ritual when RAM clears to restore my hooks, which I can probably do behind my back.  I actually often clear my RAM intentionally.  It's nice to keep things archived.

That would be a great idea, but I only have one flag changed (lowercase) from default.  The rest is hooks.

Awesome Deep Thought! Looks very detailled!

Don't forget about ARCHUTIL by Dr.Dnar. It fit's in with the Calcsys method and is way easier assuming your programs are not in the same sector as the corrupted thing.

Also, I have found that removing all of the batteries is not necessary, the ON + battery has always given me a ram clear and saves a lot of time as opposed to leaving a battery out for 15 minutes. And, I think before you reformat the flash chip, you should have people try to reinstall an OS. Reinstalling an OS doesn't delete the archive so they would still have their stuff if all goes well.

Ok I saw the new updates, very nice.