The author, Olivier de Broqueville designed this circuit for hi’s son who was dreaming of a small tool able to write symbols or pictures on a screen. The solution adopted was to pilot a matrix of Leds. This way, with only some cheap transistors, common red Leds, and a 16F628 , the dream could become reality.
Olivier also made a VB application that you can use to design patterns and export them apropriately.
Fancy LED matrix: [Link]
It’s a good idea to use LCD’s with projects like this instead of led digits, because LCD’s don’t need to be refreshed, they allow you to display many characters and it requires less I/O pins. In this project a 16×1 LCD Display with 4-bits interface it’s used. Time and date are displayed as HH:MM:SSx mmm dd, where: HH = Hours MM = Minutes SS = Seconds x = AM/PM mmm = Month (Jan, Feb, Mar) dd = Day.
LCD Display with Date and Time: [Link]
ICSP, as the name suggests, allows programming of a PIC in circuit, avoiding the need to constantly take it in and out of the programmer and the subsequent bending of pins. This programmer works with any standard serial port and successfully programs a 16F628 PICs in HVP (high voltage programming) mode giving you an extra pin on PORTB - which is handy. As with the LVP programmer, it draws power for the PIC’s main supply voltage (Vdd) from a USB port.
Simple serial ICSP PIC programmer: [Via] - [Link]
Read about a cool usb to serial adapter here : USB to Serial Adapter