Its been a while!! My idea to move to using an atmega328 was a good one, however my idea to try and use the chips internal clock was not!! In order to flash the atmega with the bootloader that determines internal clock usage, we will need to attach the chip to an exteran clock source!! I also found all in one resonators that have the xtal and caps in the one tiny package. This results in a pretty standard arduino pro mini format, which makes bootloader and code flashing super easy and super standard.

After many months of not having time to touch the new boards, I finally got to soldering it up, and BEHOLD!!!!!!!!

A while back, i contacted a company in china to manufacture a custom snapdome sheet to make things much easier for the project. After a few weeks and a small fee, i got some sample sheets

they worked out great, however the minimum order qty is going to be a killer!! The clear layer means that the silkscreen text can be shown through it, making life easier when typing. I just need to work on the key layout, and add in some 'layers' to allow more character input than the  current number of keys allows

Onwards!!!!!!