Reset button

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In electronics and technology, a reset button is a button that can reset a device. On video game consoles, the reset button restarts the game, losing the player's unsaved progress. On computers, the reset button clears the memory and reboots the machine forcibly. Reset buttons are found on circuit breakers to reset the circuit. This button can cause data corruption so this button often doesn't exist on many machines. Usually, in computers, it is present as a small button, possibly recessed into the case, to prevent accidentally pressing it.

[edit] Personal Computers

The reset button could be an actual button or concept. The reset button would typically kick off a soft boot, instructing the computer to go through the process of shutting down, which would clear memory and reset devices to their initialized state. Contrary to the 'Power Button', which would simply remove power immediately.

Pressing the reset button would be preferable to the power button, which could potentially leave a device in the middle of some operation and subject to defect. In most commodity hardware, the consumer would expect the device to be resillient enough to 'reset' when power was restored.

Depending on the architecture, the reset button might have different effects. On PCs, usually it is connected to the motherboard, and when pressed it sends a reset signal to all peripherals. Many newer computers have no separate button for reseting the computer, it is intergraded with the power button. On most newer operating systems, the user can customize what happens when they press the power button. For example they may set it to Do nothing, restart, shutdown, or stand by. This is only for pressing the button once, On most computers if you hold down the power button for a few seconds the computer will remove power immediately.

[edit] Game Consoles

On game consoles, many times it is simply a software signal. For example, on the Nintendo 64 and the GameCube, it instructs the currently running software (game or console BIOS) to restart forcibly, usually fading out the volume and/or screen brightness for a cleaner effect. On the PlayStation 2, the button is by default programmed to restart the whole system, but, especially on games using the Network Adaptor/HDD, it might clean up the connection, unmount hard drive partitions, and remove power from the hard drive before restarting the machine. In the latter case, many times it switches off the system instead of restarting it (the reset button is actually also the on/off button, but under normal circumstances, the button needs to be held for 2-4 seconds to turn the system off).

On certain games (especially those that use autosave), one can gain an advantage by using the reset button. If you've made a mistake, such as getting a character killed, you can press the reset button instead of saving, and start from a point before you lost the character, with a good use in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. If CJ is to be wasted or busted, the player would simply restart the game console and retry the mission keeping their original weapons in inventory. Some consider this poor sport, however, and refuse to use the reset button for this purpose.

In the Animal Crossing series, there is a character named Mr. Resetti who always appears if the player has not saved and quit, but instead used the reset button (or turned the power off). Despite the fact that the player may face difficulties in the game (or any other game, for that matter), Resetti says that one should just move on and forget the mistakes. Not saving the game numerous times causes his already-short fuse to light, angering Mr. Resetti. At one point, he even threatened to reset the game himself as a practical joke.