OK, I pulled the processor out of the project board and set it up on a proto board with nothing other than the minimum circuitry to power it up ( Vdd, Vss, reset, serialin, serialout) and communicate with it serially. I took out the RS232 driver (yes, I discovered the inversion after I did it). Still have the same results. I am using a desktop computer with a "real" serial port. I am using the internal resonator on the PICAXE. There is no question that when the serialin pin is pulled to +5v I get output on serial out, I don't know if it is valid data or garbage. I am using a 5v power supply with plenty of current capacity. When I do a firmware check, I get the hardware not found message. What actually does the "firmware" button do? What is the message that the bottloader returns to the computer? Is it printable characters? Is it a bit pattern I can detect with a scope?