Thanks rajbex for the schematic and the information. I am still having problems even after going back to the old C program (the one found in the samples directory of the Hi-Tech compiler.) I have now soldered from PORTC Pins 0 -3 to DB4-7 respectively. If I had to guess, I would say it is still my initialization of my LCD. When I power it on, all I get are black boxes across the first row. From what I understand, if it initializes right, I would get black boxes on both rows. (it is a 16x2 LCD display). Is that right?

 

If this is your first microcontroller circuit, I would suggest you to test everything (compiler, programmer, and circuit) with a simple project, like blinking a LED or binary counter or so. I mean do you know at this moment that your PIC is actually running the code. I had a bad experience when I started learning PIC programming in C. I used free version C compiler from mikroC, a programmer from a different vendor, and my own circuit board. Sometimes I made mistake in setting of MCLR pin. I had it ON on my code, but on board it was not pulled high, and so.

Thank you.
- Raj
http://pic16f628a.blogspot.com/

 

Thanks Rajbex. This is my first circuit I am actually building. I was thinking about doing something simpler. Maybe I should just do that. I am using a ceramic resonator at 4 mhz, so I changed my configuration of the chip from XT to HS. I also set the MCLR to MCLREN. So I guess I am a little scared of the chip not actually working right. I am using a DC adaptor set at 7.5 DC and I have a voltage regulator (7805) that gets it down to 5 volts. So my whole circuit is running at 5 volts which shouldn't be a problem.