If you are hooking the two chips together, it would be a good idea to
look into synchronos operation of the USART.  It is much faster, and it
was designed for this purpose.

As far as the other questions, have you gotten either chip to talk any
other serial device (computer, etc) to verify that your code works?  The
TX can be connected to the RX without any other components.  Send your
sample code to the list and we can see what's wrong.  I assume otherwise
the chips are working correctly (got a blinking debug LED going?)

-Adam

Greg Hartung wrote:
>
>    I am trying to get a 16f877 to talk to another one over the built-in
> serial usart.  I don't think I need a Maxim or Dallas rs-232 chip.  Can
> I simply hook tx to rx?  Receiving 877 never gets anything.  I tried a
> series resistor and a pullup.  No luck.