LED Effects w/o a μC

Ive got access to tons of different chips, just no microcontrollers, and I dont have the board to program a μC anyways. Is it possible to build a circuit (well, a few) that would, based on which input went high (+12v) (all on the same string of 50 LEDs):
a) turn them all on, one by one, then all off. So for example (o = off, O = on):
o o o o
O o o o
O O o o
O O O o
O O O O
o O O O
o o O O
o o o O
o o o o
b) light them all up to 40% brightness
c) light them all up to 100% brightness (thinking PWM for b and c?)

Note that not one circuit has to do all this, just as long as they can all be connected to the same strand of LEDs and not hurt eachother.

Im not looking for someone to design this whole thing for me (that would be nice though ), but links to other circuits or datasheets of chips that can do what Im looking for always helps.

PS. Although I appreciate you looking, please dont post things saying like 'Use a microcontroller' or 'it will be too hard'. Im not good at programming, and Ive never even looked at microcontroller coding, and thats not something I really plan on using anyways, so learning it to write a program to do this, when I can build it with other chips, seems like a waste to me.

Hmmm... An LM3914 is a bar/dot graph IC, will do 10 LEDs, cascade 5 of them for 50 LEDs. Two opamps LM358, can be used to generate a triangle wave to drive the LM3914s.

Brightness thing... maybe a little too much.

Data sheets Alldatasheets.com or datasheetcatalog.com ar good sites.

Fading-red-eyes, by Bill Bowden is a good opamp triangle wave generator, and can be found here, and all over the web. Try Google.com to find it. Well documented, and several suggestions on changes.

Would an LM3915 work aswell, or just an LM3914? Would I need a triangle-wave generator for each one, or just for one (and theyd all run off it)? Ive seen the fading red eyes circuit before, looks simple enough.

Check the data sheets, not sure of the difference. I only used a 3914 once, long time ago, just remembered that the can be linked together, and does what you wanted.
Just one triangle wave generator, this is the rise/fall voltage to be displayed by the 3914s. The great thing about the fading-eyes, is that most every aspect of the circuit is explained in some detail, easy to adapt to your needs.

Hmm. Will a 'sequencer' circuit do what Im looking for, or will that only turn on one at a time? Found a couple on Bill's site that look easy to build.

hi,
lighting the leds isnt a big issue u can use transistors to drive the leds and bistables to generate the sequence. about brightness i think u can use some transistors, comparators to switch the curent that flows through the drive transistors. but there must be some simpler solutions i guess.