Hello guys and thanks,
I dont have a chip yet, but the grand idea is to get an 18F25K22 ( thats the 5V version IIRC ).
I intend to make my own breadboard with chip, periperals and program it with my PICKIT2.
I aim to use the Amicus IDE and program in BASIC (PBC).
Fifty quid to flash a LED; it's called progress.

MElabs have removed the pdf of the PBC and only now do the PBP3 ( BASIC Pro ). I did feel that taking on the Pro version now was premature. However, I found some PBC tutorials in the Amicus18 document folder. I didnt realise it was a set of tutorials because it has a very silly name: "Amicus IDE" - hardly obvious.

I think I have the answer to the question. Chuck Hellebuyck has made an almighty cock-up in his book, which has remained unchallenged, or uncorrected, for 10 years. Which I think is bad. He has used the DIRS command to set the direction of the PORT pin. But that command is an old BASICSTAMP command. Theres absolutely no other reference to it in PICBASIC and, worse, even in his own book.
I also made a cock-up: I didnt realise that the BASIC command "HIGH, pin" does two things, ie it pulls the pin high and makes it an output. So, I dont need to bother with the direction register; yet. The DIRS command is for the Pro compiler and, confusingly, to set a pin as an output, the command is a 1, or HIGH, the absolute opposite of Microchips PIC convention. You couldnt make it up.
I also noticed that you recommend I get the datasheet. Well, of course, but it's 500 pages. That's longer than "War and Peace".

bruce