Step 1. Do you have the Philips document that defines I2C? If not get it
here.

http://www.semiconductors.philips.com/acrobat/literature/9398/39340011.pdf

>The SCL (clock) is low, till the PIC transmits, where I see
>the nine rising edge clocks.  The SDA goes low before the
>first clock, indicating a START condition?

The clock should not be low between messages. You are looking at something
that is incorrect. I suspect your code is not doing the right things. Get
the Microchip application note AN735 and copy the code. This works
correctly.

>What exactly controls that, in other words I need to send out
>address, then command then data, but it would appear that
>the start bit is sent each time with each packet.

It is not a start bit as such. Look at the Philips document to see how to
detect when the bus goes from an idle state to the start state.

>I don't see anything that explicitly says...this bit set, will
send out a start condition.

You can get all this from AN735

>Also, using 7 bit addressing, and the address is placed in
>the SSPBUF where it will be streamed out, do I need to
>explicitly define the R/W bit as the LSB of the address
>data?  Or is this done internally in the MSSP hardware.

Again check AN735 to see how it is implemented.

--
http://www.piclist.com#nomail Going offline? Don't AutoReply us!
email listserv@mitvma.mit.edu with SET PICList DIGEST in the body