Hello Jack, along with other several possible solutions,

1) take a look at:
http://www.marktechopto.com/tb62709f.htm it is a serial input (2+1
lines), decode, auto multiplex, common anode LED 7 seg, that can scan
and drive up to 4 displays.  As the segment is active low drive, and the
digit selection is high drive, you could use 8 PNP or P Channel FETS for
the segments and 4 NPN or N channel FET for the digit selection, to
drive your lamps. It has internal character generation and they can be
cascaded.

2) If your PIC has plenty of time, do the char generation and
multiplexing scan by yourself. Incandescent lamps have a nice
persistence for scanning. Try to use low voltage lamps. As it will be
multiplexed, probably you will want to use 12V lamps on 16, 18, 24 or
even 30Vdc (high peak pulses).  12V lamps requires higher current than a
power equivalent 110Vac lamps, so the filament is ticker, more
mechanical resistant and it is less sensible to multiplexing eye effect
(as the filament is ticker, it absorbs more heat, taking longer to cool
down).  If you apply power in 10Hz square wave to a regular 110Vac 40W
lamp, you probably will see some flickering, at the 12Vdc 40W lamp it is
not easily notice...

Wagner Lipnharski
UST Research Inc. - Orlando, Florida
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