So, I have been playing around with my core unit, and its not responding to Midi at the moment. Here is a list of my experiences, maybe there is some little thing that I am missing, or need to do:
a) I am just trying to upload MIOS 1.6 onto my core, with just an LCD attatched - I see the boot-blocks, and the reg stays cool. I have a pic with just the bootsrtap loaded, and it is spitting out some nonsensical midi messages - so I try my other PIC with Mios and boot already on there, and it spits out what I assume is the little song the SID plays when powered on.
b) I have tried to send MIOS to that PIC as well, but there is no response/change on the LCD
c) switiching back to the PIC with no mios, still spits out the garbage. I am fairly certain that this is a midi input issue, since I am getting at least something from the PICS output… but no upload request, just random midi stuff
so my question is, how easy is it to destroy the optocoupler? I am thinking that evidence is pointing toward that ic… and maybe I am getting the midi messages because mios partially loaded or something?
I have built one SID before, and it worked great for about 3 weeks, then died on me - I am thinking that I was bad to Commodore in another lifetime or something, or have a SID curse. However, I feel that the core is where I am having these troubles. (the other SID I built was no longer talking either, but I think it was the core because when I powered it on I did not hear the little tune anymore, and there was no midi response.) Thats why I decided to start fresh and do a neater job, and possibly, with a little luck get to step B, and have a stereo SID…
maybe the gurus can help me out and reverse the curse! - T
