IO port help, please!

[Polar]

G'day all.

This might be a bit of a silly question, but I am quite new at this and really need help urgently.

I am currently programming a PIC16f876 to communicate with an optical mouse sensor. I am using PORTA for this purpose. It has two main communication lines, one for a serial clock and one for serial data communication.
I want to use PIN_A0 for my serial clock output to the sensor and pins A1 and A2 for sending data and receiving respectively.

I have set up PORTA by setting the TRISA register to 0xf4 (set_tris_a(0xf4) ). Now I want to clock data through to the sensor. My problem arises when I change PIN_A0:

For example this code which would be in a while statement:
//this code is only for writing the address to the the sensor which I
//want to read from.

//while begins
1 output_low(PIN_A0); //downclock
2 if (address bit must be high)
3 output_high(PIN_A1); //sets an address bit to be clocked through
4 else
5 output_low(PIN_A1);
6 delay_us(5);
7 output_high(PIN_A0); //clocks the address bit into the sensor
8 delay_us(5);
//while ends

The problem I have is that whenever the code in line 7 is done that PIN_A1 is immediately set low again. Thus not waiting for the next if statement to set the new value of PIN_A1. I have a feeling it is the way I have set up PORTA.
Should I use fast_io? Should I turn ADC off or should it no make a difference? If someone can maybe give me an example of setting up PORTA for this kind of application I would be very gratefull.

[ajt]

Try:
setup_adc_ports(NO_ANALOGS);
_________________
Al Testani

[Pete Smith]