Hiya Dave, welcome aboard! I don't know the answers to all of you questions, but I'll try to answer the ones I know the answers to ;-) Yes. There are some threads about this topic somewhere. Hopefully someone can answer that question. 4 DINx4 boards will give you 4 * 32 = 128 digital inputs. How many do you need? I am pretty sure this would work, but I doubt it'll be necessary. The Core can handle up to 8 analog inputs w/o the need of an AIN board. So if 128 digital inputs is enough, you're all good. If not, it might be preferable to hook up a part of the digital inputs as a matrix. Yes. Yes. 2x16 should do for most test purposes. IMHO Bigger is better though. Debugging is simply more fun with a bigger display ;) Yes and No. This really depends on the pinout of your LCD, in most (all?) cases you'll need to wire one side (usually the LCD side) manually. I hope that helps, nILS