Thanks for the responses, I can stop looking for the rest of the data sheet. I was too busy looking for fine print I overlooked the highlighted section that says it's the same as the 4550.

I did get wires connected between the 4553 board and my PC. I put an HSEROUT in my main routine to send a message out once per second. All I get is qbert "«Š¥h” ejg«üa©Š¥Gh” ", I can move the wires to the 4550 board and the message displays fine.

The 4553 isn't in backward (I've done that before, so it's the first thing I check now!). I also have an LCD and LED's that are driven from the 4553, those all work fine.

I'll start a new program for the 4553 and just put in the bare EUSART as suggested. Hopefully I can find my error.

Let me know if you have any other idea's.
Thanks