>> It seems too easy to just hook up the max-233a to the usart
>> and start writing data - where's the catch?
>
>No catch, the UART hardware and the MAX232 are designed to work
>together. But you have to initialise the UART, wait for a
>buffer-not-full before you write a new char, and if you want to
>receive you have to read the receive register in time and watch
>for receive errors (and clear them).

Well no catch hardware wise. That is exactly what the MAX232 family of chips
are designed for. However there are some software gotchas, and you should go
looking for Fr MacGhee's PICUART.ZIP which contains the complete source code
for UART handling code, and has extensive comments on dealing with every
step of setting up the UART. The most recent version also has a comment on
dealing with a potentially subtle problem with using members of the MAX232
family which can corrupt the first character(s) if you don't stop and think
about it. I used to have the URL for it, but it has been moved. A google
search should find it readily though.

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