CrossRoads:
The way its coded, it will display 654321.Its up you to define what goes where, there isn' a standard.
Ok, that's what I thought.
CrossRoads:
You have no current limit resistors? That will burn out your LEDs eventually. The TPIC6B595 can sink a lot of current.
I have 1 small resistor on each of the common anodes of the 7 segment displays. I sized it so if I was displaying the number 1, it would be about 10mA. If I show an 8, the display dims more. I would add resistors to each individual led for my final project, but I didn't want to put in 42 resistors on my breadboard for this. (plus I didn't have that many on hand)