"Still would like an explanation of the up/down that I can understand, and how I can get it to work, preferable without more electronics I don't understand." Still would like some help here...
"up/down" Think what he was going for there was 'pulse train'. The 555 will generate a series of timed pulses which can be accurately controlled. The 4017 counts these pulses, sending the first of them to the first output, the second to the second, and so on. Useful info here.
