Well, herewe are again thanks for further suggestions. I have now changed the xtal for a 4Mh resonator with changes to the config to match. Still as dead as a dodo (rather like the 6 877's which now return the Code programming error at 0000 and have presumably died)
RB7 (pin 40 remains at about .3 volts and for some reason pin 39 is at 4.9 I have incidentally checked and rechecked the solder connections and since the circuit initially worked perfectly there can't be much wrong with the layout. In fact with the darlington chips removed thereis nothing but the supply, the two decoupling caps (0.1) a pull up on mcr (pin 1) and the resonator and led connected to rb0. Is this annoying or what (The local cats are all going into hiding) andthe divorce can't be far off .. Ah well.