Melanie

Thanks for the prompt reply.
My idea was to transfer the 8bit data via 8pins (wasteful I know)

So if I had 2 x 16F628 20Mhz one sampling using pulsein
The other reading rs232 data in and send out to an lcd.

The one sampling the pulse would set 8 pins high or low in BCD format.

The second pic reads the rs232 then scans the 8pins and reads these as bcd. ( I am assuming I can read 8pins in ms's)
This seemed to be the quicker way than reading pulsein for between 1 > 2 seconds to get the result I want (I'm only expecting to see 1 > 5 pulses in a 2 sec period) Then read rs232 the display the results.

Hope that made sense

The problem I'm trying to over come is the pulsein sample time. I have to sample for a reasonable time to achieve a meaningful result. But I have to read the rs232 data as this comes in 3 or 4 times per second.
I don't want to be sat in a pulsein routine whilst new rs232 data is coming in.

I am assuming that PIC are not multi tasking?

Rob