I just tried your ideas but to no avail. I previously tried several values for COMMANDUS and DATAUS out to 5000 and 250 µS each. I also tried several PAUSES of 1000 to 5000 mS in various spots in the program. I didn't try mister e's idea, though, because I think that I need the list of DEFINES to make the 16F690 work. Right? This display did work with a 16F84a and a simple program like that one.
Thank you for your consideration,
Dennis