<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">I am not sure if my initial response answered your questions directly. <div> <div>1. No unless there is some compelling reason to connect the switches to vcc go the other way and connect your switches to ground.</div><div>2. if you do this then the internal pullups on the port pins will handle this correctly.</div><div>3. given that your pin selection actually spans two io ports then digital reading the pins is as good as any.</div><div><br></div><div>Don.<br><div><div>On Jan 1, 2009, at 3:49 PM, Hans Lindauer wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div>A few easy questions for those in the know. I have a DIP (SIP, actually) switch connected to pins 5-8 of my dorkboard(s) and to +5V, and want to read in the switches as as number.<br><br>1. Can I safely connect +5V to a digital input (or 4), and leave it high for an extended period without having to worry about overheating or other issues? Probably a dumb question, I know, but I'm still learning the ins and out of this stuff.<br><br>2. Do I need pull-down resistors to ground on each of the digital pins? I guess I don't understand the necessity of that. Also, is my terminology correct?<br><br>3. What's an elegant way to read those pins in as a byte? I know I can multiply the pin value by 2^n and add them all up, but it seems like there's got to be a smarter way. Maybe I can read a register with the pin values and mask off those bits?<br><br>Thanks in advance,<br>-Hans<br>_______________________________________________<br>dorkbotpdx-blabber mailing list<br><a href="mailto:dorkbotpdx-blabber@dorkbot.org">dorkbotpdx-blabber@dorkbot.org</a><br><a href="http://music.columbia.edu/mailman/listinfo/dorkbotpdx-blabber">http://music.columbia.edu/mailman/listinfo/dorkbotpdx-blabber</a><br></div></blockquote></div><br></div></div></body></html>