Bill

I have used these displays for a couple of years and also have made my own displays using the MAX7219. I can tell you they are sensitive at start up you need to ensure you have enough capacitance. For my home brew project I had to add a 100uf cap on the 5 volt lines. Got a lot of strange results without it' I have also included the setup I use with two chips daisey chained.

Code:
'###############################################################################    
 ' ====================== MAX7219 SETUP ==========================

MAX_SET_UP:
for a = 0 to 3
    For index = 0 to 7		' Retrieve 8 items from table. 
      LookUp index,[SCAN,7,BRITE,10,DECODE,%11111111,ON_OFF,1],max_dat
      ShiftOut DATA_n,CLK_n,1,[max_dat]
      IF odd = 0  Then noLoad	' If odd is 1, 
      PulsOut LOAD_n,1		' pulse LOAD line.
    NoLoad:				' Else, don't pulse. 
    Next index					' Get next item from table. 
next a
		
return
'' ===================== DISPLAY SUBROUTINE ========================

Max1:

  ShiftOut DATA_n,CLK_n,1,[0,0] '
  ShiftOut DATA_n,CLK_n,1,[seg,dat]	' Send the digit. 
  PulsOut LOAD_n,1				' Load the display. 
  						' Repeat for all 4 digits. 
return						' Done? Return. 

Max2:
    ShiftOut DATA_n,CLK_n,1,[seg,dat]	' Send the digit. 
    ShiftOut DATA_n,CLK_n,1,[0,0]
    PulsOut LOAD_n,1	

return

Good luck

Dave