I am new to electronics, but a programmer by trade. I am trying to achieve a circuit of up to 100 independently controlled LED's (not segmented display modules). Ideally the circuit would be controlled by one or more PIC microcontrollers as I have a Willem II programmer. My application is artistic in nature and requires the leds to be spread out over a wide area as opposed to being in a grid formation.
I have heard a lot of conflicting reports about Maxim's MAX721xx chips for this job. Some say it's the one I want, but others (including an actual Maxim tech-supporter) say it's more suited to the segmented displays. I have experimented with this chip with little success.
Has anybody achieved anything like this? I have scoured the Internet and newsgroups for literally weeks looking for a matching schematic and source module. I have found a few Basic Stamp modules but I'm not setup for that at all and would rather stick with native PIC. The only compiler I have is MPLab's MPASM.
Many thanks to anyone that can help