Alec Myers wrote:

> Does any know a cute way of reading three BCD thumbwheels that uses
> less than
>         i)      Twelve i/o pins
>         ii)     Seven pins and 12 diodes?

  Yes, use a 4000 series parallel-in, serial out shift register with the
requisite number of inputs (just looking for one in the specs!).  That
would require three PIC lines, two of which can be used for another
function as well (the Latch Enable and serial clock - the data line is
simply ignored while these are otherwise used).

  Cheers,
        Paul B.

P.S.: You will need pullup networks.