What's the best way to loop while waiting for a character

[tonjon]

I'm working with a 16F873, using the PCWH compiler. I can transmit just fine at 1200 baud using "printf's", but when I try to read, my buffers are just filled with zeros. I've got a loop that spins in 21us increments while waiting for "kbhit()", but once that happens my program just gets a bunch of zeros in the buffer that I've set up.
1) Can I use something other than "kbhit()" to check for a character in the USART buffer, or is "kbhit()" looking for a bit flag somewhere?
2) Does anyone have an code example of the use of the serial interrupt (#INT_RDA)?
3) Which bit flags a received character in the USART receive register?
Thanks y'all.....

[PCM programmer]

Use an interrupt-driven receive fifo. See the CCS example file,
EX_SISR.C for sample code.

Also, tell us if you're using the hardware UART or a software UART.
(The hardware UART will use pins C6 and C7).