A quick note on HyperTerminal: it probably won't work. HyperTerminal (and most other terminal emulation programs) set the DTR line as soon as you open the port. Unfortunately, this is how you signal the Basic Stamp that you are about to program it, so it will probably get rather confused.
I don't remember any options in HyperTerminal that let you disable this feature, but it may be there somewhere. Otherwise, you'll have to write your own program to do it. It's not overly complex, and I can help get you started if you're interested. I'd offer to write it myself, but RoboEmu 2.0 is already sucking the life out of me.
--Rob