OK, we are using this PIC18F4520 to do a few things:

1.) Generate 5 TTL clocking signals for a CCD
- we are using a 20Mhz ceramic resonator and we have EPIC Win set to HS when programming. We have the first and third pins of the resonator wired to OSC1 and OSC2 (pins 13 and 14 on the PIC), respectively.

2.) Acquire analog data from the CCD and convert to 8 - 10 bit word for serial transmission. (the faster we can do these conversions and send them out the better).

3.) Eventually use some sort of interrupt to start the clocking signals and the A/D process and end it as well.

My questions are as follows:

First of all, how do I wire the **** thing up to a serial connection? Can I just use any 8 digital I/O ports in sequence?

Also, I know the manual says this chip does 10-bit A/D, but if I want to use asynchronous serial transmission, I think 8-bit would work better, is there any way to select that?

All programming is being done in PicBasic Pro and EPIC Win.