Except, instead of using a parallel port, I was planning on using serial to parallel converters that can operate with 8 devices on the same serial bus. Except, I still don't understand quite how it works. Does anyone have any experience with these? Because once I figure out how to connect it, I know what I'm doing from that point. I figure that one of the converters will run the 7-segment display, and another will have 8 LEDs attached too it, 7 of those being for RPM and the other one for a shift light. Eventually I am planning on a digital speedometer as well. That might require a micro controller, or a bunch of logic gates. Anyway, here is the data sheet I found for the serial to parallel converter:

http://focus.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/sn74lv8153.pdf

That looks mighty complex while I have some parallel port experience, but i'll try to find some more info about this thing.
Best thing you could do is to give kada_cz a pm, he knows a lot more about parallel ports then I do, or just move on to micro-controllers like me.

edit: I found 2 links that could help you:
http://electronicdesign.com/Ar ... rticleID/10524/10524.html
http://www.picaxeforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1953

Quote from mikey_G :

That looks mighty complex while I have some parallel port experience, but i'll try to find some more info about this thing.

I'm going to use a serial port instead of a parallel port. That way I can have up to 64-bits parallel data instead of just 7-bits from the parallel port. Of course, you can also make a custom protocol between the microcontroller and the computer, so that you can send a large packet of data. Now I am beginning to consider going the route of a microcontroller

Now that I've done some more reading, it should be quite easy to control this thing and it's a especially cheap way to control 64 outputs. Sucky thing is that there aren't a lot of sample programs in not-sucky programming languages

edit: This is my take on how it would work

You send the first frame, which sets the baud rate, address and data bit 0-3. After you sent that you send the second frame which is exactly the same except that it has data bits 4-7. After the receiving of the 2nd frame, SOUT will go low which prolly indicates that the data bits and address bits have been set.
Now, depending on the address bits(A0, A1 and A2 can be 000 to 111), you send the data bits through specific wires.

Dont kill me if this is wrong, but this makes sense in my head.

edit 2:
I was totally wrong, A0, A1 and A2 are inputs.... I suck.
I guess that's why I prefer making my own things with ic's instead of figuring these things out.

Have you made a project like this? I'm open to any cheap way to do this.

Sure I made something like this, but it will be a tad more expensive then this.
I started with AVR microcontrollers cause they're cheap and fast, and as soon as you figure out (or copy and paste code) how to do UART communication, PWM and charlieplexing, you're almost done.
The biggest advantage over this TI chip is that the community is huge for AVR's, and you can ask everyone for help (and avr's can run on C, big plus)
As soon as you figured out how to do everything on serial, you slap on a FT232R chip on it so it can be used with usb instead of serial port (and maybe even power it if you stay under the power maximum of usb).

A thing that you can do, is to take a look at this guide and just simulate the code in AvrStudio so you can get a taste for it.