Thanks ... I went ahead and incorporated the startup code to jump over the interrupt vectors. I'm using a universal pld programmer with TopMax software. After programming the chip, its able to verify it. So I hope I am good on that end.
You are right .... writting to a port seems like it should be so simple - yet I still don't have it working yet. I think I'm very close though. The pointers I have gotten here have definately help move in the right direction.