[dtengineering]

You are 100% correct that it would be possible, and I am sure some of the serious codeheads will expand upon the most efficient way of doing it... although it sounds like you are heading in the correct direction.

In fact I have done something very similar using the PIC 16F627 and 16F84 series of chips using the "SEROUT" and "SERIN" commands of PIC Basic Pro from MELABS.

While it is convenient to use the commands in PIC Basic Pro, all they do is... as you suggest... turn digital I/O pins on and off.

More advanced PICs, such as the 18Fwhatevers in the RC actually have serial ports built in to them that handle a lot of the timing and I/O at a chip level, rather than having to run your own code... but those work only on certain pins. It doesn't mean that you couldn't program your own serial port onto any other series of pins. In fact USB and ethernet connections have both been programmed into PIC microcontrollers as well... they are just another rapid series of one's and zeros... albeit with a somewhat more sophisticated logic and timing than RS232.

Don't feel obliged to work only with the RC... take a look at some of the different PICs available either as free samples from Microchip, or through Digikey/other on-line vendors. It is amazing how much computing power you can get for just a couple of bucks!

Jason