Gawd, that's a four-year-old program and you expect me to remember what LCD's I was using at the time? I do recall that you could use either the upper or lower 4-bits. On checking the current DATASHEET (Datasheets always seem to come into the conversation on this thread) I find that Tri-T (our currect supplier) only supports the UPPER four bits. So this is obviously non-standard. I'd connect as per the PBP manual, but using the Port pins as specified in the DEFINES within the program. I've tried the original MN1307 this morning (I've not checked the posted version) connected that way and it works.

Buttons are on PortB and use the PICs internal weak pull-up's.