:o What is the difference between the two reset buttons
Hey! I'm new to this forum but let me see if I can help!
The "RESET" restarts your part of the code that you upload to the chip.
The "MASTER RESET" button actually restarts the chips code. It has a sort of mini operating system on it, this is taken care of by the board manager and uploaded when you first update that curie library.
In terms of a computer, you can think of the master reset as rebooting your computer, while the reset button is just closing and opening a program on your computer.
Hope this helps, and I may be a tad off but I believe the gist is accurate.
If you have to reset your program, it should be better, and faster to reset using just the "RESET" button.
p.s. https://www.arduino.cc/en/Guide/Arduino101#toc6 tells "After a sketch is uploaded to the board, there's a delay of a few seconds before it starts to execute." this is due to the chips "operating system" starting up
The reset button triggers a software (warm) reset. It will leave things like the real-time-clock alone. It usually works - but since it is sensed by the boards running firmware (that runs on the other core that your sketch isn't running on), if the system is too crashed, it might not work.
The master reset is a hardware reset. Pretty much same thing as if you pulled the power. It resets everything, including the real-time-clock and all the hardware.
I think Intel intended (intends?) to add some more functions to the soft reset button. Maybe for firmware updaters?