https://www.gammon.com.au/forum/threads/11635.html?id=11635 https://www.gammon.com.au/forum/threads/11637.html?id=11637 it seems some good capacitors are necessary on the breadboard. i ordered five bucks of stuff from aliexpress: 10 x 20pF ceramic capacitors, for the 16 MHz crystal that MUST be connected by default in order to get the chip to wake up. 10 x 100 nF ceramic capacitors, for power decoupling. 1 x TinyUSB ISP programmer. if all else fails, i will use this. please see the image attached for the recommended setup to install a bootloader: