Note: Filenames in this document are given with their *extensions*, which Windows XP doesn't show by default.
For those who don't know, the extension is the '.txt' or '.89t' or the like which comes after the name of the file; The extension indicates what kind of file it is.
The two main programs in this package are FromTxt and ToTxt. Also, there's Sync89t.exe, update.py, and update.bat, which all go together. To run the update stuff, on Windows, you would run update.bat (for best results). On linux, you would cd to the folder update.py is in and type 'python update.py'. (Sync89t is used by the update stuff)
If you don't have Python 2.3 installed, then the update script won't be able to run (Well, it will if you have a useable version installed and you're using Linux, in which case the rest of this paragraph doesn't apply to you). If that is the case, and you want to use the update script, you could either install Python 2.3 to c:\python23 (the default location), or you could download and use update.exe instead (It comes with 5 other files that have to go with it, which is a bit more inconvenient IMHO than just having two files (the .py and the .bat), but it's up to you).
Okay, depending on what you want to do, here's what you need and where you need it:
(For Linux, ToTxt.exe is instead named 89ttotxt, and FromTxt.exe is instead named 89tfromtxt. The Linux readme says how to run them properly in Linux; The following directions are primarily for Windows.)
ToTxt also converts 89p files to txt files, which is occasionally useful, but not often.
ToTxt converts certain symbols in 89t files to readable text when it writes them to txt files. These are the smaller - sign, the store symbol (->), the symbol for Pi, the not-equals-to and <= and >= symbols, and the square root symbol. Other symbols are not changed, which is usually OK for the ones you see on your computer keyboard, but not for ones you don't (For example, greek letters). The fonts used on the TI-89 are different than the standard ones on most computers, which means that those unconverted symbols which aren't normal on computers probably won't look anything like they do on the calculator.
FromTxt ignores txt files which have a corresponding 89p file. This is so that if ToTxt makes a txt file from an 89p file, FromTxt won't create an 89t file for it. Unfortunately, FromTxt can't actually write 89p files.
Also, the symbols that ToTxt converts to some regular text are NOT changed back into symbols by FromTxt (Because that would have slowed FromTxt down (a little) and I didn't need that functionality, and this was originally written for my own use).
Example directory tree for if you're using the update stuff:
Unless you're using update.exe instead, update.bat REQUIRES that you have Python 2.3 installed in c:\python23 (but not update.py, so you DON'T need Python installed in a particular place, and you DON'T need a specific version of it, if you run 'python update.py' yourself, instead of using update.bat), which is where it's normally installed to. So if you installed python elsewhere, you'd have to edit update.bat (that shouldn't be hard, just change 'c:\python23\' to wherever it's actually installed) once before you can use the update stuff. Mind you, the only reason it can't figure it out itself is because update.bat is a simple batch file, and isn't that smart.
Some computers may come with Python already installed, but it may be the wrong version. It might work with it, if you want to edit update.bat to change the path - or it might not. The safe bet would be to install python 2.3, because that's what it was tested with (I've also tested it with Python 2.2.1 now, while testing the Linux code in Cygwin). Or to download update.exe and the files which come with it, and use that instead.
Technical description of how update.py works: If you ran update.py, it would check timestamps, and for each 89t-txt file pair, if one file was newer than the other and also newer than files.lst (if it existed), then that one would be converted and the conversion would replace the other. If a txt file had no matching 89t (and also no matching 89p), or vice versa, then it would always be converted, unless files.lst was newer than the txt file. Files.lst is always brought up to the current time after update runs (Actually, after Sync89t runs, but that's more or less the same thing) unless there was an error (like being unable to write to a file).
Update.exe works the same way as udpate.py, and in fact contains update.py (along with the required files from python 2.3 and a python 2.3 DLL, all of this packaged by py2exe). The downside to update.exe is that it's 6 files instead of 2, and that it is bigger (1.32 MB unzipped, or 523 KB in a zip file, or 418 KB in a 7z file (both zip and 7z zipped by 7-zip with the best compression possible), or 438 KB RARed by WinRAR with best compression), oh, and that it only works on Windows, whereas update.py should work on Linux (or anywhere else) as long as Sync89t is compiled to 'sync89t' (no capital letters) or you're on a case-insensitive platform (like Windows).
Personally, I keep a copy of ToTxt and FromTxt in the MyTIData folder, and when I copy files from my TI-89 to the computer, I first make a folder named after the date, and copy ToTxt and FromTxt into it, and then I go ahead and copy the files using TI Connect's Device Explorer. After that finishes, I run ToTxt to get text files. I also have a folder like the 'work' folder in the above example for the files I edit on both the computer and calculator.