Osgeld:
and you dont have to write unless your sure your going to save (ie dont write to it every button press or something)
also, does the arduino do any eeprom writes in the background?
the arduino does not multitask unless you write something to fake it (then it only appears to multitask)
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I figured out pretty quick that I should only write at the end of the menu routine.
I didn't mean "background" in in a multitasking sense, I was referring to things that happen autonomously, like something being written to eeprom during a re-boot or upload.
On a lighter note, I started building some of the routines that these options menu's will control, and it seems that I'm bogging things down. but I will be making another post about that...
Thanks for your help!