Frank.. I have driven LED's directly on a few projects.  An 8032
project. And four PIC projects that come to mind.  The first trick is
the display manufacturer.  Kingbright, Stanley, and HP make a good high
brightness type without going into special order.  Some, like Panasonic,
suck  (to be blunt).  I will admit that I saw the tread on overdriving
the pic pin and suffering from migration, which is a very valid point,
but I must be honest that I haven't had the time to checkout my circuit
in operation and measure the currents.  I can tell you, for what it is
worth, that they are in production and nobody is flipping out on me.

Frank Dalton wrote:

> I didn't get the full text of yesterday's posting regarding
> the use of the 14000 to direct drive an LED display, but
> I assume someone was asking about a problem with it.
>
> In my experience, the 14000 does a poor job of driving
> an LED display (7-segment, using Port C to drive it).
> The display is just too dim to see in normal room light.
>
> The only solution I know of is to put a line driver between
> the PIC and the LED displays to boost the signals.
>
> --
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