Hi,

This project is the complete design documentation for a large digit debt 
counter.  It was commissioned for the Students association at Canterbury 
University, Christchurch, New Zealand.  It is 8 foot long with 12 digits, each a 
foot high, and it counts up the debt that the students have.  It is still 
working beautifully to this day.

There are several interesting things about the PIC 16F876 micro code in Hi-Tech 
C:

1.  Example of serial comms, plus supporting Visual Basic v5 and v6 project.

2.  Example of delay routines, maths routines, etc.

3.  Multitasking system.  Its keeping a record of the count in the background, 
while checking the serial lines for comms, updating the display using the shift 
registers, doing PWM to control the brightness, etc.  The system allows multiple 
tasks to be run based on a timer tick.  Each task executes at a selected 
frequency, and priority.  Large tasks can be run in the background, triggered 
from the interrupt.

The counter is still working beautifully to this day - the design is complete, 
but I take no responsibility for the lack of documentation or clarity in this 
project.

The techniques used for the PIC side of the project are explained in detail in 
the Hi-Tech C FAQ, http://www.workingtex.com/htpic


Cheers,
Shane


Designed by Shane Tolmie.  Freely distributable.
Questions and comments to the email address at www.microchipC.com