LOTS of questions....

[skimask]

I'll try a few of them...not all...
[QUOTE=reaper0995;52956]HPWM 1, DEC dog, 1000[QUOTE]
No need for DEC in the HPWM line.

now, lets say i want to get OUT of this while loop WITHOUT modifying the "dog" value, would this work to "force" wend??

You can jump out of a while/wend loop anytime, without any collateral damage so to speak.
No stack to mess with or worry about. And you can 'nest' while/wend pairs, just like you can nest for/next loops. Just don't get the while/wend pair inter-twined...

3: can i invert an ascii character on lcdout, or perhaps with an ede702? preferably on the lcdout....

No. Generally the character sets are fixed...generally that is! But you can use the graphic character ram to make the characters you need as you need them. Trouble is, you only get 8 (sometimes 16) spots to do that. And if you change one of them, if another character is already displayed, it'll change too.

4: how can i do a pulsin, rctime, or something to count a period (or part of duty cycle, ANYTHING!!), while at the SAME time waiting for counts?

Nope. All of those commands are 'blocking' commands. They'll have to finish before anything else happens.
If you want to do more than one thing at a time, you'll have to play with the hardware, compare/capture ports, hardware PWM, and interrupts, and so on...

5: on a normal 14 or 16 pin lcd, there is data 0-7, but 4-7 is all that i can tell gets used.... now i know that the data 0-3 is for SOMETHING, and i am sure the datasheet says why, but hell if i can figure out what they are good for! what are they for? things FAR beyond normal lcd uses??

A parallel, Hitachi 44780 based LCD, is usually capable of operating in either 4 or 8 bit mode. It's mainly a way to save a few pins. Most of the 4-bit only LCDs I've seen are the 8 character types. 8 bit types are a bit faster, 4 bit types require 2 writes per character sent (high nybble, low nybble, and so on).

6: on a 2x16 lcd, there are charactors 'dots' between the blocked character boxes, and i cant really figure how to use them... and the "dots" between the rows.

Can't get to those dots...generally, if it's a standard parallel LCD. You might have a 'special' LCD, but I'd doubt it. I haven't seen one yet.

Sounds to me almost like you're trying to read the speed of a mouse wheel encoder...or something along those lines. There's methods of doing that, and hardware to do that for you. I can't place any off the top of my head... Maybe somebody else knows...

[reaper0995]

I'll try a few of them...not all...
Sounds to me almost like you're trying to read the speed of a mouse wheel encoder...or something along those lines. There's methods of doing that, and hardware to do that for you. I can't place any off the top of my head... Maybe somebody else knows...

close, i am trying to do an encoder and motor/gearing from a printer, but i do have a wheel from a mouse just in case the printer one doesnt work (the encoder has a LOT of interupt bars, if more than 255 of them, i cant use it... i will store the last location in the eeprom (so when i turn on/off, i will still know where i was when i left off), and of course eeprom only goes to 255. i kinda want to stay away from "off the shelf" units since they are kinda costly, and i have a fair amount of spare PIC's laying around to tinker with. it there is something i might be able to hack out of (lots of spare crap!), might do that.

thank you for the fast response!!