I added the code you suggested to mine with a few alterations becasue my b register didn't have enough ports so I had to shift a few things around but I still am only seeing solid black boexs. I threw an LED in the circuit to make sure the code was repeating correctly and the light blinked in perfect step. I have the LCD using only the 4 bit bus and I am using the upper 4 bits on the LCD display so A.0-A.3 is connected to D3-D7. R/W is grounded, and Enable is on B.5 while RS is on B.4. I can see the pulses coming off the pin with my O-scope so the chip seems to be working The only thing I can think of now is to add pull down resistors to the buslines, Any other suggestions I might be able to try? Thanks for the help so far, The new code i have is posted below minus the blinking LED.

DEFINE LCD_DREG PORTA 'LCD DATA BUS ON PORT B
DEFINE LCD_DBIT 0 'LCD DATA BUS ON PORTB.0:3
DEFINE LCD_RSREG PORTB 'R/S REGISTER ON PORT B
DEFINE LCD_RSBIT 4 'R/S ON PORTB.4
DEFINE LCD_EREG PORTB 'E-CLOCK ON PORT B
DEFINE LCD_EBIT 5 'E-CLOCK ON PORTB.5
DEFINE LCD_BITS 4 'DATA BUS 4 BITS
DEFINE LCD_LINES 2 'LCD DISPLAY LINES

Loop:

pause 500
lcdout $FE,2, "hello"
pause 500
Goto Loop
END