yes, i did get it to work. and yes, i am able to get a LED to blink from PORTB.3 and get string of char's to display on the LCD now.

and, this is whether i set INTRC_OSC or EXTRC_OSC. although i am not using an external OSC!

for my current code, at least from the process of elimination, having these two values, "DEFINE OSC x" and "OSCCON= x" set correctly made the difference along with the baud rate.

thanks!