Ouch. I don't have an answer for you but I have to say that's the first time I've seen that happen on a device that should see 5V and ~100mA max. Wonder what went wrong there?

Well, it looks like the series resistor of a zener shunt voltage regulator is blown. Either too much voltage was fed into the connector (it says +9VDC), or there has been some excess current draw or a short circuit after the regulation. It is impossible to say if there is still something else broken as well, as merely the blown resistor is only the result of an issue, not the issue itself (just like with fuses). If too much voltage was fed in through the DC connector, and the shunt regulator was not able to handle that voltage, it is possible that the rest of the circuit has gotten overvoltage as well (I bet the regulated voltage should be 5V with about +/- 5% tolerance).

The resistor value is impossible to know unless the current consumption of the circuit is known (with just three PICs, I estimate 5-20mA per PIC, so the circuit could draw anything between 10mA and 65mA. Basically, if it works, you could feed 5V from a lab power supply to get a current consumption estimate. It is also impossible to know what the zener rating is, but it looks so small it can only handle 1W or 0.5W. Well, that said, at the extremest I said, the resistor needs to be 60 ohms to provide 65mA current before 9V drops to 5V, and 260 ohms to provide 15 mA current before 9V drops to 5V. So, the resistor is between 60 and 260 ohms. And it needs to be at least able to handle 0.25W of power.

Frankly, I'd replace the resistor-zener shunt regulator with a real 5V regulator IC, if the rest of the circuit is not broken.

Can you take a photo of the other side of the PCB as well?

Here's the back of the board.
Thanks!

It looks like it's orage-something-brown-gold. Something looks gray but I suspect it is white, as 390 ohms is standard resistance while 380 ohms does not exist.

So R6 should be orage-white-brown-gold is 390 ohm 5%.

However if the thing is broken and draws too much current, the new resistor will overheat too, and the actual problem must be fixed, not the symptom.

Its Orange - Orange - Brown - Gold = 330ohm, Confirmed using a meter as well. So whats that, like max 30mA draw.

Pin 10 of the DB25 routes via anode of D3,
The DC barrel jack routes via anode of D4 then both go through R6 onto the +ive rail to the uC's

just for my ref http://tinyurl.com/yd4ndalr

Thanks - I could not see it was orange, and 330 ohm 5% it is then.

Not quite 25mA, 9V in, 5V out -> 4V over 330 ohms -> 12mA.

I'm also trying to get my portman working, pretty sure the parasitic power is not working as I'm only getting a volt or two on the power rail. I was trying last night but i think the 9 volt reg I was using is playing up (need to try on my bench supply tonight)

You were saying to rip out the zenner shunt and put in a real reg, would that be like a LM78L05? I really don't want to kill the IC set.