Jim Franklin wrote :

> As I am trying to shoehorn the project into an 877A,...

What's limiting ? Speed, flash, RAM, I/O ?

> would  you guys out
> there recommend using a second PIC (F84A or something - i'm
> using this as it's in my parts box) as a slave to the "master" 877A.

Depends on the answer to Q1 above, but probably no.

>
> I have an LCD display on the slave communicating via serial
> to the master PIC.

There are also "serial-LCD's" that perhaps could do a fair deal of
the job of the "slave-PIC".

[snipped a lot of details...]

But easiest seems to simply use a more capable PIC from the
18-family.

Jan-Erik.

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