Can anyone give me some part/e-commerce references to getting multiple 7-segment displays working with the FEZ_Mini? It’s been a long time since I did my electrical engineering classes and a BCD to 7-segment decoder isn’t going to work anyway since I need more than 1 digit. I did see some all-in-one units, but I’d like to find the pieces so that I can more easily control the size/shape, and learn exactly how the pieces work together. I also have several 7-segment displays ready to play with that I have have previously used with the Panda II (directly wired).
Yes I have considered a text LCD, but I want the readability (and limitations) of using 7-segment displays. I plan on using text LCDs in other projects, but for this one I just want the digits and don’t want to be tempted to build a ton of stuff.
This one should work: http://www.robotshop.com/ca/sfe-7-segment-serial-display-green.html
You only need 1 digital wire to talk to it (serial) or 3 wires (SPI)
If you need more than 4 digits, you will just need to use 1 pin for each module 
To send data to it, do you just use a SerialPort object?
Is there a resource with samples for working with all these various devices? I’m a pretty good programmer, but having a few lines of code can really save time and frustration. I know GHI provides samples for all their shields and e-blocks which lets me quickly adapt them for my own needs instead of taking a couple hours figuring out I need a PWM instead of a Digital port.
I appreciate any insight from those with more experience (which is anyone with more than 1 week of hobby time) working with FEZ & such.
No really need for sample code or driver, have look at the doc : http://www.robotshop.com/ca/content/PDF/users-manual-com-09767.pdf
Just send a packet of 4 bytes of the serial line, and they will show on the display.
You can even save a serial port object my using outputcompare on any digital pin (see this example http://code.tinyclr.com/project/179/voicebox-shield-with-poormans-text-to-speech/ )
Thanks Blue Hair Bob for the link, it makes it very straight forward to understand it.
Thanks Nicolas3, I had seen that PDF and figured I would use that information, but the sample is good as it connects the dots. I will take the code from the sample and make something more compact and limited to just what I need, but seeing 5 of the lines in that sample will save me a couple of hours of debugging, and keep a few hairs in my ever receding hairline for just a bit longer.