yeah, I'd figured that; the character set not being an array was an oversight on the previous post I'm sure - I already have it working, and it does in fact compile to a single mov instruction as I had hoped! joy :)
As for the [3] being LSB, in SDCC that'll actually put it in the hsb.. Since I actually need the third, I'm using [2]. In an compiler that put them in the opposite order, I'd just need to switch to a [1]

Anyway, Thanks! :)

I'm coming to the realization that efficiency of C as compared to asm is all about implementation. As long as one keeps in mind how it translates, C can be written to be extremely efficient.