At 04:30 PM 11/14/96 -0600, you wrote:
>PIC.gurus,
>

>        2. Any recommendations for 7-segment LED's? Ideally they'd have
>current limiting resistors built in (to save wiring - I'm just an engineer
>so my wire-wrapping skills are very suspect), be cheap (a recurring theme -
>hey, this is for the Cub Scouts and they're not rich), and be as big as
>possible (and no, I don't want to pay $5-10US each for 3" high versions).
>

Lee,

I would again recommend Maxim's 7219 chip.  No current limiting resistors
needed, will drive up to 8 seven segment displays, and only takes three
output pins.  I have code to dirve the 7219 and will share it with any
interested parties.  The datasheet is available online from Maxim.

Digi-Key sells these little puppies, but they're not cheap-- about $8.25
each.  However, for what they do, in my opinion they're worth every cent.
Sure makes designing hardware a whole lot easier, and uses three pins to
drive up to 64 individual LEDs.  And yes, though it's designed to drive
seven segment displays, you can configure the chip (quite easily) to drive
an 8x8 (or smaller) matrix of LEDs.

-Matt