Yeah, I don't know how to use a PIC either... I use AVR microcontrollers. If you already know how to use a PIC, you must know how to program, so the only problem would be the display. Past couple of weeks we had a PIC clock thread going that dealt with multiplexing 7 segment displays. Should be just what you need. Believe they had the code and hardware, but don't remember which PIC or what language, as I don't use PIC, and only done assembly so far, but looking into BASIC.