> the PIC documentation has lots of tables giving crystal speeds > and some form of constant (I don't have the book in front of me) > that gives a baudrate with a bit of error, the errors vary from 0% > to several percent. How much can I get away with? I'd like to run > the PIC as fast as possible as it is also going to be controlling a > VFD and some buttons. That's a terrible table and I've never liked it I'd suggest 19.6608 for a 20MHz part and 39.3216MHz for a 40MHz part (39.3216 is 9.8304 with the *4 multiplier). Using these you'll be very close to the speed limit of the PIC and have 0% RS232 error -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.