With MCS/PBP: I don't think I was able to get the Explorer-18 board configured with MCS. I didn't know how to set up the Explorer-18 board as the custom programmer. I tried PK3CMD.exe for the programmer file, but I have no idea if that's the correct exe file or if there are other parameters to set up. I think MCS/PBP compiled the code ok as it made the asm, hex etc files.

And with MPLAB: I still can't get MPLAB to compile the code, getting the usual:

Executing: "C:\PBP\PBPMPLAB.BAT" -ampasmwin -k# -p18F8722 "blinkx.bas"
Executing: "C:\PBP\PBPW.EXE" -ampasmwin -k# -p18F8722 "blinkx.bas"
PICBASIC PRO(TM) Compiler 2.60, (c) 1998, 2009 microEngineering Labs, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.

ERROR: Unable to execute mpasmwin.Halting build on first failure as requested.
BUILD FAILED: Fri Apr 23 10:47:04 2010

Not happy! Is there any hope with MCS/PBP or do I have to give up and switch to MPLAB and the C compiler route?