Circuit testing and debugging

Everything fired up first go. The channel boards contain the PLL, VCO, waveshaper, ringmod, VCA, lock indicator and various related electronics. There are two identical channel boards, capable of operating independently from each other, but really designed with cross-modulation in mind. Each board is controlled from a 8-bit parallel data bus. Many features are jumperable the board is laid out for easy experimentation with features. There are so many possible configurations! Testing everything as a complete unit is difficult due to the sheer complexity of the PCB interconnect wiring and front panel control stuff. So I've been breaking it down into smaller parts, "divide and conquer".

One of the two 'channels' near completion.

Digital control board, PIC goes in the empty socket.

Two identical 'channel' boards.

Microcontrollers

A project of mine wouldn't 'hardware compile'.. That is, I didn't manage to squeeze all the (tiny SMD) components onto a PCB small enough to fit the enclosure. The "brains" made up of a bunch of discrete logic gate IC's could be replaced by just a single 8-pin microcontroller.. 
Coding assembler is a pain.

PICkit 2 programmer/debugger