I had to replace the batteries in my TI-83+ yesterday, which is of course normal. What is not normal is what happened after I did this: I ran GarbageCollect and while it was doing that, the batteries must have been loose since the screen faded in and out. Once I restarted the calculator, "Garbage Collecting…" continued to show on display with a frozen run indicator. I tried to reset it by reinserting the backup and AAA batteries, but upon turning it on it stayed frozen on the same message.
I am concerned that some system memory was overwritten, but it puzzles me why it would start at all and show the last displayed message, instead of failing to turn on at all. I have a load of archived games and programs I made since 2012 on there, so if there is ANY way I can salvage any code, I'd be highly grateful. Also, if anyone has any insight as to what exactly may have been corrupted, please share … I'm curious as to what was going on inside that thing.