>Can anybody give me some clues to getting this going?  I'm fairly
>confident that once I get the simulator simulating something, I can
>figure out the rest on my own, but getting past step one has me baffled.



Have you got the debug mode set to simulator?

I'm also relatively new, I did one pic project at www.agrelo.com/upll.html
It also does morse, and a bit more, on the '84
That's a nice platform, fast crash-n-burn :)
Once you get used to it, the sim is very good.