First I'd like to apologize for missing the guide you linked me to TK
I felt horrible when I saw,"Please don't ask for help in the forum
before you haven't worked through this guide." in the first paragraph.
this morning I went through the midi interface troubleshooting guide
midi interface loopback worked
midi interface loopback with TX and RX pins on socket bridged worked
all midi input tests in the guide passed
LED flickers when attached to midi out
resistors double checked... diode double checked
optocoupler checked and replaced (I have many)
midi plug polarity is correct (surface mount jacks)
I performed all the core tests and get consistent results
4.9V at all points it's supposed to be at
Now I'm 98% sure it's not the PIC, Optocoupler, Diodes, Resistors, or Jacks
I have more than 5 of each and have tried them in different combinations
I have a core assembled on a board as well as a core on a breadboard giving me the same results
More detailed info on the MIOS upload attempts:
After selecting the mios_v1_9g_pic18f452.hex from the midi folder and clicking Start
Each Midi Out message repeats 16 times then progresses to the next message
This process takes about 14 minutes at which point I see
'Upload of 13312 bytes completed after 832.74s (0.02 kb/s)'
So for some reason MIOS studio seems to think it completed the upload
Even though this transfer rate indicates something is wrong
TK suggested
"check the messages in the upload window, probably you are getting checksum errors or no response (timeout?)"
I am not sure which window is the upload window
but I see no errors anywhere
other than the out messages being repeated exactly 16 times each
is this normal or a sign of timeouts?
At this point I think we must blame the midi interface
It is a Tascam Fireone which is a crap interface at best
I am on OSX, but will probably attempt this on Windows 7 later today just in case.
I know for a fact that the drivers are significantly different between windows and osx.
I guess in the meantime I'll start shopping for a good dedicated MIDI interface.
Thanks for your help guys