-> JH>I expect it will idle very rough - - battery died, and that so-called
-> JH>computer has by now forgotten all it ever knew about how the car should
-> JH>be running.

-> I forget the year, but computers in cars of 10+ years ago didn't
-> remember too much anyhow and after restarting and running a few times
-> had the memory restored.

 I believe they all had a "Limp Home" mode in a PROM chip plus a lot of
the regular runing parametewrs. Mostly what you loose with Long term
power loss is the Failure History in the older computers and the "White
Rat" feature in the Newer ones that has such things as HOW fast you were
going when the Air Bag was Triggered. 
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