HELLOi PICMASTERS Of The UNIVERSE
Yep it's me again, back from North Eastern Utah for another battlestar galaxy imploding adventure in programming.
The good news, I have the whole mutliplexing, DOT matrix stuff all figured out and working.
The other good news, I have a basic scrolling program that does work.
The other......news...I need help creating a lookup table that I can fetch ASCII values out of in an array type format...at least I think that is how I want to do this mission.

Help me O-PIC-E-WAN's your my only help....(sorry it's still early in the morning for me).


HERE IS MY WORKING CODE
Code:
'****************************************************************
'*  Name    : MY FIRST SCROLLING LED.BAS                        *
'*  Author  : Tyson Earl                                        *
'*  Notice  : Copyright (c) 2008 Ty's Custom Electronics        *
'*          : All Rights Reserved                               *
'*  Date    : 8/13/2008                                         *
'*  Version : 1.0                                               *
'*  Notes   :                                                   *
'*          :                                                   *
'****************************************************************
DEFINE OSC 12

'ADCON1 = 4 'this sets ANO, AN1, AN3 ON
ADCON1 = 7' ALL DIGITAL
TRISB = 0
TRISC = 0
SINK   VAR PORTB 'ROWS
SOURCE VAR PORTC 'COLUMNS
x var byte
y var byte
z var byte
A VAR BYTE
B VAR BYTE
S VAR BYTE
STP VAR BYTE
CHAR var byte[8]

SOURCEA VAR WORD
SOURCEB VAR WORD
SOURCEC VAR WORD
SOURCED VAR WORD
SOURCEE VAR WORD
SOURCEF VAR WORD
SOURCEG VAR WORD
SOURCEH VAR WORD

COL1 VAR PORTB.0   'COLUMS ARE COMMON CATHODE, DO ALL THE SINKIN'
COL2 VAR PORTB.1
COL3 VAR PORTB.2
COL4 VAR PORTB.3
COL5 VAR PORTB.4
COL6 VAR PORTB.5
COL7 VAR PORTB.6
COL8 VAR PORTB.7
ROW1 VAR PORTC.0   'ROWS ARE THE INDIVIDUAL ANODES, DO ALL THE SOURCIN'
ROW2 VAR PORTC.1
ROW3 VAR PORTC.2
ROW4 VAR PORTC.3
ROW5 VAR PORTC.4
ROW6 VAR PORTC.5
ROW7 VAR PORTC.6
ROW8 VAR PORTC.7

HIGH SINK       'TURN OFF DOT MATRIX, NO SINKING CURRENT
LOW  SOURCE     'NO SOURCED CURRENT

MAIN:

'********************************
'HAPPY FACE APPEARS ON DOT MATRIX
'********************************
FOR z = 0 TO 200        'MULTIPLEX (SCAN) SCREEN 201 TIMES
PAUSE 1
PORTB   = %11111110
SOURCEA = %00111100
PORTC = SOURCEA
PAUSE 1
PORTB   = %11111101
SOURCEB = %01101110
PORTC = SOURCEB
PAUSE 1
PORTB   = %11111011
SOURCEC = %11011011
PORTC = SOURCEC
PAUSE 1
PORTB   = %11110111
SOURCED = %10111111
PORTC = SOURCED
PAUSE 1
PORTB   = %11101111
SOURCEE = %10111111
PORTC = SOURCEE
PAUSE 1
PORTB   = %11011111
SOURCEF = %11011011
PORTC = SOURCEF
PAUSE 1
PORTB   = %10111111
SOURCEG = %01101110
PORTC = SOURCEG
PAUSE 1
PORTB   = %01111111
SOURCEH = %00111100
PORTC = SOURCEH
NEXT z

'****************************************
'SMILEY FACE SHIFTS QUICKLY ACROSS SCREEN
'****************************************

FOR STP = 0 TO 7           'SCROLL MR. SMILEY OFF SCREEN
    FOR S = 0 TO 20        'SCAN SCREEN 21 TIMES (FAST) BETWEEN SCROLLING
        PAUSE 1
        PORTB = %11111110
        PORTC = SOURCEA >>STP
        PAUSE 1
        PORTB = %11111101
        PORTC = SOURCEB >>STP
        PAUSE 1
        PORTB = %11111011
        PORTC = SOURCEC >>STP
        PAUSE 1
        PORTB = %11110111
        PORTC = SOURCED >>STP
        PAUSE 1
        PORTB = %11101111
        PORTC = SOURCEE >>STP
        PAUSE 1
        PORTB = %11011111
        PORTC = SOURCEF >>STP
        PAUSE 1
        PORTB = %10111111
        PORTC = SOURCEG >>STP
        PAUSE 1
        PORTB = %01111111
        PORTC = SOURCEH >>STP
    NEXT S
NEXT STP
GOTO MAIN
HERE IS MY OTHER MAIN PROGRAM THAT DOES NOT WORK
Code:
'IN MAIN2 I WANT TO BE ABLE TO ENTER A "PARSED" STRING/SENTENCE TO THE SCREEN
'THE IDEA BEING THAT YOU CAN ENTER IN "I DID IT!" AND THE 8X8 DOT MATRIX WILL
'SCROLL ...I DID IT! FAST ACROSS SCREEN

MAIN2:                           'NOT WORKING OBVIOUSLY
FOR CHAR = "A","B","C","D","E")  'LOOKUP ASCII DECIMAL VALUE BY STEP/SHIFT????
    FOR STP = 0 TO 8             'SCROLL CHARACTER OFF PAGE NOT SURE HOW TO IMPLEMENT
        FOR S = 0 TO 20          'MULTIPLEX SCREEN PAUSING ~10ms EACH SCAN
		  GoSub display	         'FETCH THE 8 ROWS 
        NEXT S 
    NEXT STP 
NEXT CHAR		

GOTO MAIN2

'LETS ASSUME THAT THE DECIMAL VALUES FOR A~E WHERE ACTUALLY 0,1,2,3,4
'IN THIS LOOKUP TABLE I WANT TO FETCH ALL 8 ROWS THAT MAKE UP ASCII CHARACTER
'EVENTUALLY I WILL NEED TO HAVE FULL ASCII TABLE BUILT TO LOOKUP (IN TO)
display:             'A   'B   'C   'D   'E  
        Lookup CHAR[0], [$3F, $06, $5B, $4F, $66], PORTC
        PORTB = %11111110
        PAUSE 1
        Lookup CHAR[1], [$3F, $06, $5B, $4F, $66], PORTC
        PORTB = %11111101
        PAUSE 1
        Lookup CHAR[2], [$3F, $06, $5B, $4F, $66], PORTC
        PORTB = %11111011
        PAUSE 1
        Lookup CHAR[3], [$3F, $06, $5B, $4F, $66], PORTC
        PORTB = %11111011
        PAUSE 1
        Lookup CHAR[4], [$3F, $06, $5B, $4F, $66], PORTC
        PORTB = %11101111
        PAUSE 1
        Lookup CHAR[5], [$3F, $06, $5B, $4F, $66], PORTC
        PORTB = %11011111
        PAUSE 1
        Lookup CHAR[6], [$3F, $06, $5B, $4F, $66], PORTC
        PORTB = %10111111
        PAUSE 1
        Lookup CHAR[7], [$3F, $06, $5B, $4F, $66], PORTC
        PORTB = %01111111 
        PAUSE 1
RETURN
OBVIOUSLY you cannot count your way through a STING, and also probably obviously I have not idea what I am doing with the arrays either. I think by looking at my working program you will see where I am heading with MAIN2: and be able to offer some ideas that might get me back on track. I have tried to comment our all my ideas.

Thanks for any help you can lend.
May the force be with you!