> Also: what purpose does db serve in this instance? (1) In garden variety
> PICs there is no way to access program memory directly, so without the retlw
> prefix, this db data appears useless. (2) The db and dw directives 'pack'
> the data into program memory as if it were a sequence of 8 bit bytes. The
> net result in, for example, a 14 bit architecture is that the two high-order
> bits of every other byte is discarded. See a code snippet following, along
> with the resultant MPASM 2.01 listing.

All depends upon the assembler; it's been awhile since I've coded strings,
but if memory serves, ASPIC uses "db" as the mnemonic to store data using
"retlw" tables; other assemblers use other things like "dt".  Too bad I
really don't like the MPASM standard, since it means I sometimes confuse
people with ASPIC.  Oh well...