Analogue-sequencer

Hi,
That thing with a black upper row and a clear lower row in the 
display, sounds a little familiar with me. That happened sometimes 
wih my P3, but not when I was ramming the buttons too fast, but when 
I did something unlogical with a midi-master device, like pulling the 
din plug while it is running.
And I got some other questions. First: , I made a sysex dump of the 
P3's memory without any problem, but when I want to put the memory 
back in the sequencer I don't know how to tell my sequencer that it's 
ready, that it has recieved the last block, cause it says: 
Pattern:170F, but what do I do after that??

Second is not a question about the P3, but I think some people here 
could help me, so: 
I'm building a sort of a Master-Clock device, with midi in/out, din-
sync in/out, time-base out and stuff like that but I till now I have 
two problems: I don't know how to make a BPM display. I use a 555 
clock timer chip for the master-clock signal, and can anyone help me 
designing a circuit for the BPM display. I got a pocket full 
of '1character displays' with 10 pins atached at the back, and I 
would like 3 of them for the display.
Third, also for the clock-thing: I'm looking for a good start/stop 
cirquit. Now I use a common push to make switch for stopping and 
starting the machine, but the switch doesn't work right. For when I 
start the machine, it runs, but mostly it stops immediatly. When I 
hit the knob it's like the switch switches on and off really fast for 
several times, and after that the machine runs, or not. 
I hope you understand what I mean, and that someone is able to help 
me.
Cheers,
Roel