Wire the DIP switch to the input of a an 8bit parallel DAC; then you will get 256 different voltage levels corresponding to 256 different settings of the switches.
Wire the DIP switch to eight binary weighted resistors (i.e. 1K, 2K, 4K 8K, 16K, 32K, 64K, and 128K). That will give you 256 different currents that you can feed into an opamp which converts it to 256 different voltage levels corresponding to 256 different settings of the switches.
Same as above, but connect it to the timing resistor in and oscillating 555 astable oscillator. You will get 256 different pulse rates corresponding to 256 different settings of the switches.