Richard, The HSEROUT command is probably setting the tris register for the operator to make things easy. I do not use any of the serial commands available with PBP. I only use the hardware serial ports and use interrupt driven serial input as well as output. Also during the Boot Loading process you have to set all port direction registers and APFCON registers as your PBP code is not executing yet. Also clearing bits 4:5 of ANSELC does no good as they are not inplemented. No analog operation of these pins.