I just noticed this message was back up on the list. Over the weekend, I soldered up this project on a pad per hole veroboard with a standalone ATMega328P replacing the Arduino on the board itself. I also increased the number of displays and 7219s to 8. I am going to rework the software soon to try to get rid of that scrolling choppiness bug. I think I may have to bypass the MAX7219 library and bitbang the chips myself. Hopefully I can figure it out. Glad you got it to work for you.