Quote Originally Posted by passion1 View Post
My circuit looks exactly like the one on p.96 of the PBP manual that shows the default setup for connecting a LCD. (except for the fact that I am using a pic16f73 and a 20MHz crystal).

Thus default connections for LCD.

Any help or suggestion is appreciated!
This PIC has a lot of analog stuff, make sure to disable the comparators, and the Capture compare/PWM goodies, also check data sheet RE: SSP Module as that port is used for that , you may have to set registers to disable. Try CMCON = 7 to turn off the comparators.