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This section of the Options Screen contains the Miscellaneous settings of MirageOS and the TI-OS that do not fit into the other categories. The aspects that the user can alter from here are as follows: Enable Lowercase, Save The Whales, Move Progs To MAIN At Folder Deletion, and Allow Write-Back In Archived Progs. The default settings for these options can be seen from the screenshot to the right, however the first item varries upon default, and more information about these Miscellaneous Options can be found below.

This option toggles the system flag in the TI-OS that controls whether or not Lowercase characters can be used during key input. When enabled, the user has the ability to type lowercase during places like the homescreen and in Basic programs if they press the Alpha key twice. The indicator in the top right corner of the screen should be a small letter 'a' indicating that pressing any keys with letters on them will place that lowercase character. If this flag is turned off, then the user will be limited to uppercase characters only when they press the Alpha key from the TI-OS.

This option does not enable lowercase usage during MirageOS, e.g., you can only have uppercase letters and number when inputting new folder and program names. This is due to the fact that we do not use the TI-OS routine in MirageOS that accepts 2nd and Alpha as shift indicators, and there wasn't a good way to handle switching between the different lettering modes. This option varries by default, depending on the current setting of this flag that the user had before entering MirageOS, and then the option setting will be updated accordingly. If the Ram is cleared for some reason, then the lowercase flag will become disabled and the user must re-enable this custom setting.

This option toggles between the custom setting of Saving The Whales, and reflects the personal preferrence of the user, pertaining to this environmental issue. The MirageOS developers believe in kindness to the environment, and the protection of the other creatures of our planet. We advocate the support for environmental concerns, and hope that the users of our shell will follow such benevolent actions.

But Actually... This option may seem out of place with the other options of our shell that serve some purpose and function. The option to "Save The Whales" shows the humorous side of the MirageOS developers' personalities. We didn't put this option in for no reason, however... We ensure that toggling this option does infact alter some aspect of MirageOS and your TI-83 Plus, but we do not plan to reveal to the public what this change is, and will leave it to you to figure out. :)

NOTE:  No animals were harmed during the development and testing of this Flash Application.

This option controls whether or not programs are deleted when you delete one of the custom folders that have been created. If you choose to delete a folder later and that folder currently contains programs, those programs can either be deleted along with the folder, or moved out of the folder automatically, and back into the Main folder. Having this option is helpful incase you want to remove some folders, but don't want to waste the time to manually move their contents back to another existing folder such as Main. Note that the Main folder cannot be deleted from the system, since we need a place to keep all new programs that are loaded onto the calculator, before you arrange them into other folders.

It is logical for the contents of a folder to be deleted along with the folder, like in Windows and other PC Operating Systems, so we needed to keep this ability in. However, we felt it was more sensible for the programs to be preserved for the MirageOS user when they delete a folder, since deleting programs is not as a frequent acitivity for the TI-83 Plus compared to the PC. This option is enabled by default so that beginning users do not accidentally loose programs they have put into other folders, when they choose to delete them. Once the user becomes familiar with this option's ability, it may be turned off if desired so.

MirageOS gives the ability for programs that have been Archived into FlashROM to stay in Flash and only temporarily copied to Ram to be executed, rather than Unarchiving a program and Rearchiving it when its done running. This process saves writes to the Flash Memory, and even though we don't expect the Archive to wear out for a long time, it doesn't hurt to take precautions in the number writes we give to FlashROM. The way this aspect ties into the title of this option, is the way that some programs need to write recent data back to themselves, such as highscores, and because of this programming technique known as \Program Write-Back, MirageOS must be respectful of this new data, and update the latest program back into FlashROM if it was originally archived.

Having this option enabled will do just that, and Rearchive a program after every time it has been run, incase the program needs to store high scores and other data. By disabling this option, the User allows MirageOS to not Rearchive the program, thus saving Flash writes. The downside to disabling this option is that no high scores or other current data will be saved for the next execution of the program, and this does not disrupt any of the current execution. Basic programs that have been archived and executed are never written back to FlashROM, and are always just copied to Ram for current execution, since they do not need to write back data to themselves.

Other benefits of disabling this option is that the loading and quitting time for archived programs will be reduced, since the shell doesn't need to go through the process of unarchiving and rearchiving those programs. This lets the program start faster, and quit to the shell faster without the regular delay. Disabling this option also saves MirageOS from altering the Archive as often, and your calculator will not need to Garbage Collect frequently. A Garbage Collect may only be needed when you load new programs onto the calculator, or delete larger programs, where the arrangement of the Archive needs to be optimized. This option is enabled by default, however, so user's will see their high scores being stored and retrieved the next time they run a particular program.