@halfpint No, don't ever remove the battery before attaching something else that will supply at least a trickle of power.
I made the same mistake, and I had to buy an ODB-II scanner gizmo to reset the computer and electronics.
I had to do quite a bit of searching before I found out what I needed to do.
Maybe knowing about "ODB-II" will speed things up for you; I have no idea if your trouble is the same as mine was.