Thanks for that i'll have a play with them tonight, shame i am away form home for tomorrow as i know this will be on my mind all day, issue is having two incoming serial data streams, and an outgoing serial + the usb out....

Neither of the incoming streams seem to wait, so i have to write code that will be quick enough to read a command and react according ly before waiting for the next serial command or change of IO state, which would also require a serial out for status.... Oh and a RTC would be nice so i can say what time things happened.

Its all so simple when i explain it real life....