I'm sorry Monie, but your basic understanding is completely wrong. You really need to understand a number of things before going forward with this application.
Here's some things you need to understand:
1. 4516 is a full 4-bit binary counter (maybe you really want to use 4510 0-9 counter, but let's assume you really do want 4516). If you send it a 50Hz clock, the Qx outputs will change at every clock pulse to show a normal count sequence:
0000 = decimal 0
0001 = decimal 1
0010 = decimal 2
etc etc
1101 = decimal 14
1111 = decimal 15
0000 = decimal 0
etc etc
2. But of course, no combination of Qx outputs is constant for more than 1/50 second since the next clock pulse changes them.
3. So if you hook up LEDs to the Qx outputs it will look like they are all on all the time - but of course they aren't, they're just flashing really fast. Try changing the clock to 1HZ and then you would see them counting.
4. Then I assume you have connected one 4516 to PORTC (you talk about 2x 4516, then 1, so I'm not sure), let's says inc0, inc1, inc2 and inc3. Let' assume you ground inc4, to inc7.
5. You then set up a fast loop to read the value from PORTC. Each time you read PORTC it will have a different value, since the Qx outputs are changing 50 times per second.
6. You then want to output the value to an LCD. You originally asked how to convert byte to 3 ASCII digits and I told you. But of course there is no need for this at all - serout and sertxd do this for you themselves.
(by the way, your attempts to introduce a 'thousands' ASCII character are completely wrong - and you will never get a 'thousands' digit anyway, since the maximum value of PORTC is 255 when each pin is at logic one)
7. So all I think you need to code is (untested):
Serout 7,T2400,(254,1) 'Clear LCD
Pause 30
Loop:
Peek 7, b0
Serout 7,T2400,(254,128,"Read Number: ",#b0)
SERTXD("Read Number: ",#b0,CR,LF)
GOTO Loop
8. Of course, with a 50Hz clock into your 4516, you will still get, effectively, random numbers displayed on the LCD all the time. Again, set your 4516 clock to 1Hz, and you will have a chance at seeing the numbers 0 to 15 being displayed on the LCD....
I'm done with typing for now, so Happy New Year to you, Monie, and good luck with all your future PICAXE projects in 2006 and beyond....Martin