I spent 6 hours studying the docs. It didn't take long to get the oscillator right but disabling all the special purpose pins is a real bear.

Anyway, I got the USART working, partly anyway, I can get the PIC to output text to the PC via my serial cable and RS232-9 pin connected to TX pin, but sending characters back to the PIC into the RC pin, is really not working. I have set BRGH high (1) and SPBRG for 9600 (25) for the 4Mhz Fosc. Enabled receive and set all the other bits I can determine to be necessary. Still no go.

Maybe the internal RC clock is not precise enough. I am going to retrofit an external oscillator ext and see if that works, otherwise I've hiot another wall.

Anyone out there used this animal in USART implementation?