But boffin, pls note that the 74hct164 does not have a latch pin.
So i guess, it's only shiftout(datapin,clkpin,order,data);

Ok, but can someone answer about switching the clock pin low and high 8 times to completely shift a 8 bit data into it?

Hi,
I want to use two 74hct164 8 bit shift registers to control two 7 segment displays. I found that these registers don't have the ability to latch output like the hc595. I want to count up 0 to 99 and then count down based on a condition. Now the problem is I don't know to code for this task using shiftout function.
I am thinking of cascading the two ic's by connecting the 13th pin of the first to 1st pin of the second ic
Also, the data sheet says that "Data shifts one place to the right on each LOW-to-HIGH transition of the clock (CP) input" . So if I am sending the data 01111111 should I switch the clock low and high 8 times so that all the bits gets shifted and I can display 0?

Datasheet:http://datasheet.octopart.com/74HCT164N-Philips-datasheet-28100.pdf

Hi guys. This is Shankar from chennai.
I am a 12th grade student. I am a wannabe geek and computer hardware and electronics enthusiasist.
Initially I took, interest on micrcontrollers after reading a article about it in a magazine. So I first started meddling with a pic 16f84. But it was too difficult to program and experiment with, for a beginner like me. Then I heard of arduino, bought it and was delighted to see how easy it was to operate, code and learn.

Arduino simply rocks to hell!

Thank you very much, chagrin. This was exactly what I was looking for.
Actually I saw the same Piece of code in an instructable page. But there wasn't sufficient info about the code. This link explains it all.

And MarkT, I was actually running a code similar to yours using digitalWrite.Thanks still, for giving me a more efficient version.

Hi guys,
I made an ir sensor manually by taking an ir  photodiode, a resistor and an ir receiver. I connect it to a2 analog pin of my UNO r3. I can detect changes in the values as I obstruct the path. I have no part no. Data sheet for this thing. All I want is to modulate the pulse of the ir emitter at say 40khz. Can some one give me a code to achieve that? I saw some posts in Internet, talking about the 3 timers of at mega 328p, I can't make a head or tail . Just pls help me out guys.

Note:
I don't have that sharp ir emitter thing which is already sending pulses at 38khz. I want to achieve that thing manually.