Speaking of which, I'll throw out a problem for the group mind to ponder...
Given N I/O pins, what's the largest number of values that you can come up
with via create connection to some number of SPST switches (ie dipswitches
or jumpers)??  (lets say you can use passive components as well, but the
idea is to minimize size and complexity.

2^N is trivial.
I'm pretty sure you can do 3^N by detecting NC vs Gnd/VCC.
You might get 4^(N-1) by using (NC, GND, VCC, IO(N)).
You can use simple A-D conversion (ala basic stamp ap notes) in conjunction
with some resistor ladders and caps, and probably easilly get several bits
per pin, although this is more complex than I'd like to get (ie 3 bits per
pin would require 8 voltage levels to be available.)

It's not just an idle question, of course.  Given an 8pin PIC, you want
every pin to do as much as possible!

BillW