MIDI in problems (broken record)

[Guest recompas]

I've checked all through the forums, and I went through the midi debug page to no avail.  Using the LED as a test, I verified that midi msgs are coming in at the midi in port.  But the LED did not flicker when connected to the points suggested at IC1 and IC2.  I tested the optocoupler and it seems to be fine.  When the connection on the test schematic is made, the voltage is .05, and when its disconnected, the voltage is 4.95.

Also, the midi loopback test does not work.  I'm using an m-audio quattro as a midi interface, and when i hook everything up with midi ox, i get the sysex string from the bootstraploader (burned by Thorsten) requesting the operating system.

Once other issue that may or may not be related, is that when i first powered everything up, i had an LCD screen hooked up.  I was never able to get anything to show up on it (using the contrast pot, i know that the bootstrap loader should display some gray blocks in the display) so i've been testing things without the LCD hooked up. The LCD is an HD44780, I assume I just have it wired poorly and plane on redoing that once i get the core functioning properly.

Any help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.  I'm going to pick up another optocoupler or two today, just in case that's the problem, but judging by the results of the test, i doubt it.

Thanks,

Travis