Hi There everyone, after many months of reading and researching, i took the plunge and built a core and sid board, the first attempts were rubblish, too much bad soldering, so i started a second batch with some excelent help. Now the Core and Sid boards are built, and they all check out with the electricity readings at the various points, these have been checked by a skilled electronics friend and he assures me they are all connecting and reading fine as per the guildlines. I connected the core's midi ports to my computer to upload the Mios software into the Pic - (Bootstrap loader V1_1b from Smash Tv) and the problem is i dont get any requests or sign of life from the pic, when i run Mios Studio and open the Midi monitors there is nothing. The midi interface has been checked in/out signals sent / recieved with synthesisers - everything working The core board has been checked - all correct readings with multimeter My electronics friend asks me to check with you about the Octocoupler calibration - is this necessary to get the message through? Could it be possible that my Pic is dead? Do i need to upload a new bootstrap? This project is a really cool thing and i want to thank Thorsten, Smash and the whole community for making it possible, and i look forward to getting the bleeps out of the SId.