Help with RS232 module

Well I can't give you code but I can give you advice. Rather than trying to work with your current hardware, slow down. hook up a PC with a low baud rate (say 9600) and use a 3 wire serial connection to the uart and send very basic binary streams; use a program like hyperterminal (on all windows machines) or putty (the new one has a serial port option as well). Don't try to tackle a huge project all at once; break it into bite size chunks. UARTs are very basic devices and a very good place to start with a small project to learn some vhdl/verilog and then move on to bigger stuff. Nothing will shatter your confidence more than constant failure because you took on a huge job rather than a Project broken down into many small modules that you can successfully build and test.