Joey

Robert, I'm with you now. Thank you very much. I just need to find or likely order one before I can put it all together. So that I can learn, why parallel over serial? Mario mentioned some inspection required before he might do so. I suppose it will work either way, but I'd love to know what you're thinking.

Thanks guys. So, to be clear, I'm not trying to detect the LED being lit optically, but rather, electronically.
Are you suggesting that I use a photo-diode to detect the LED being lit, or that I build an opto-coupler into the circuit?
It seems like the later is what I'm trying to do, if it is sound.

...I try to insure my apps end eventually (in normal and in error conditions) or they include thread.sleep() inside any infinite loops.
If you comment out the code in main(), does it deploy and start flawlessly? ...

Thanks Dan. No dice. I tried with the following code:

public static void Main()
        {
            var v0Port = new OutputPort(Pins.GPIO_PIN_D0, false);
            bool toggle = false;
            while (true)
            {
                toggle = !toggle;
                v0Port.Write(toggle);
                Thread.Sleep(1000);
            }
        }

...and had the same issue. Also, I've since tried deploying my program from the host (not the VM), and it works.

What I also realized is that once the code is deployed, it doesn't seem to auto execute. If I hit the reset button on the board, it will start execution, but the debugger doesn't attach. So I'm lead to believe that Visual Studio is not able to successfully restart the Netduino (and my manual restart somehow prevents the debugger from attaching).

Does MFDeploy work smoothly?

I wouldn't say smoothly. Like I said in the original post, it appears to hang at "Executing Application", but a configuration check after a manual reboot appears to show that the Firmware update was successful. It does look like the same type of symptom, as if it is not able to restart the Netduino successfully.

And we're back in business. There were two things I failed to realize that your last post cleared up. First, I thought I needed to download the RS232 firmware because that's how I was going to deploy the firmware. I now realize that the version relates to the configuration of how you want to deploy projects, and both firmwares can be deployed over RS232. Second, I thought the ability to select your transport was built into the firmware. I now understand that it is just a project that needs to be deployed. Awesome. I can't say how happy I am with your help. Thanks Chris!

Thanks for the info. After tracking down an older machine with a COM port, I was able to successfully load the bootloader and firmware. Now, MFDeploy can ping it successfully in RS232 mode. However, when reconfigured to UART , I receive a "No response from device" message. I've got RX/TX going to pins 11/12 and GND and 5V wired accordingly. On the FDTI Basic, I can see the TX light flashing, but not activity on the RX. When attempting to use TeraTerm (configured 115200 baud), I receive no response after pressing Esc. I'm hoping I didn't fry anything in while reloading everything. Is there anything I might be able to do differently to figure out what's up? Thank again for your help