Just out of dispair: Can you connect two different pins, say 6 an 7 or even better 8 an 9? Burned-out I/Os in the chip can show similar symptoms...

Well this is not bad! Though a little bit funny.... The MAX chip doubles (and inverts) the voltage, so this somehow indicates a 3.3 volt supply, but it should be a 5 v supply, shouldn't it??

through the prolific PL2303 which being USB would be providing ~5v level as well wouldn't it?

I think this is a cable with a 9p subD plug at its other end? Then it will provide +/- 12 Volts. Or is it just a tiny break-out board?
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Nevertheless you should use the Maxim chip ..
If you have a multimeter, can you take a voltage from
Pin 2,6, and 7 please?
This will verify whether the chip is correctly wired to all that caps...
There should be no characters send during that measurement.

The bit rate from NewSerial is very precise.
What you describe could be a problem of signal level.

What is that level shifter you talked of?

In rare cases a device will not accept 0/5V as RS-232 signal (it not indebted to do so!) It might really need a higher level and/or negative levels...

What about ground connnection? -I just ask for completeness..

What is BOD all about?
When power fails,or the power is just switched off regularly, this is not a spontanious event. Depending on the caps it can take seconds during which the voltage slowly drops down.

Different functional devices inside the processor will stop their working at different voltage levels; so it will give some confusion for the program, as instructions will no longer work as expected. The best way is to keep the processor in a reset state as soon as the supply voltage drops below a "safe" margin. If you run @ 20MHz, 4.3 Volts is a safer value....

BOD is a very important feature. In older professional designs there was always an external BOD chip for this purpose (otherwise they would not have been considered "professional"" :-) )

what should i do?

Learn C?

void RomWrite(byte Addr, unsigned int Val) {
      Addr *= 2;  // int is 2 bytes

Addr is the logical index of an int-item, not a physical address. So it should better be called "index" rather than "Addr"...

Mike, what are you trying to explain? The good man is using a Sure display which is well understood und in use at dozens of forum members.

Now he tries to use a piece of code that seems not fully adapted to the SPI interface of the Sure display... I myself do not want to correct this program...

If I remember correctly, you already succeeded in connecting that display the other day...
http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1283710282

This confuses me  a little bit... Your program does not seem to match the Sure display interfacing...

The Sure display uses SPI which means:
clock -> WR
data  -> DATA

RD should not be used, also not a latch strobe which is for '595 registers or such...

If I read the code correctly you posted first, then you have a latch signal on pin 10 that should work fine....

I just had some fun by asking google ..... weird.
But among all the things there are also good answers (Sorry, drhex -- your answer is of course also good!)
http://www.electro-tech-online.com/electronic-projects-design-ideas-reviews/89254-74hc595-latch-pin-what.html

Then you have to tell him what you want him to do in the time he shall NOT scroll...

- Increment a counter in loop() and perform the scrolling only at specific counter values.
- Use millis() instead a simple counter

Try to program it through the ISP interface. If you have no programmer one of the other Arduinos will do.

We will learn from this, whether the chip still lives. We can also refresh the bootloader, which might have gone lost - though I cannot think of how, except there was no bootloader at all in it from the beginning....

Good to hear!
Configuration Problems are tricky to solve through a forum, when not being able to remote control your PC :-)