Thx for the reply's everybody.

I chose the 7805 part for my project because i had one on hand (many on hand), and also because the end goal for my little project involves around 12 IC's, and a backlight.

The project involves 1 pic 16F767 running@20mhz which aquires data from several 74LS151 8-1 data selector IC's.

The data is "line status" information coming over 2 wires and 1 common for each "phone line". The pic runs the address sequencing and aquires the bit information and then transmits it to PC software.

The inputs on the 74LS151 IC's are tied high and are "commoned" to ground. Active Low.

I decided to Add on an LCD connected 16F84a. It is to receive serial output from the 16F767 PIC and print certain information to the LCD display (totals for each of the 4 states of the phone line).

So lets say I move the lcd backlightpower to the source before my 7805 regulator which is powered by a 12v wall wart adapter. Do i need a voltage divider before feeding the power to the LCD backlight?

I think the ultimate solution would be to have a button on the 16F84a that turns on the backlight. So i imagine this would involve an interupt? But lets start off by powering the backlight..