I think someone dosnt want this to work
I did the hserout just as you said and still got garbage. I then checked the pbp manual and double checked the define's. all ok. Wait a sec, the 16f876a has the usart tx on pin c6! Right? So I moved the lcd serial line to c6 and still got garbage! What is going on! So then I programed a simple code into the pic to just do a hserout to print to the lcd. I used the proper define's and still got garbage. At this point I am thinking what the heck is going on. So then went back to a simple program to print on the lcd with the serout2 command just to check the lcd. And sure enough garbage! Is the lcd bad? Well I then hooked it to the pc and ran a program that tests it and sure enough the lcd is shot! Not sure what happened. I never hooked it up reverse polarity. Is it possible that with the initial garbage coming out of the pic it sent something to the lcd that screwed something up? I am totaly scratching my head. LOL
The only thing that I might have done is connect the serial line going to the lcd to 5v. Would that kill it?
I am going to try the my old parallel lcd and see what happens.

Thank you for putting up with me this long. I will get this thing running if it kills me! LOL

Smitty