Yes I know bricked means it can never be saved so I will not use that word. Anyway here is what dumbass (me) did.

I was attempting to fix my prompt (get it back to how it used to look) after installing bash as my shell for the default user (user). well I changed back to /bin/sh, ran echo $PS1 wrote down that result and changed user back to /bin/bash. I then (yes without running it on the command line which is why I call myself a dumbass *****) opened up .bashrc and put export $PS1="the output of my previous echo $PS1 command".

duh apart from not having tested it from the command line first... there should be no $. well anyway the result is the reboot process brings me to the dots flashing across my screen forever.

so is there any "backdoor" to get in and fix my .bashrc? or am I looking at a complete reflash of the device?