avioncis,
I did see page 35 and does not give memory location for some reason where the register 9-1 is at. Which I find weird. But there has to be one because the bits are writable says datasheet. But yes at this point it's not looking good.

Arch,
Sorry this is a DIP 8 pin package. vdd seems to be holding it high internally. as there is 5 volt on GPIO.3 with nothing connected. But I'm sure that is the way it is suppose to be. So it doesn't reset itself if someone didn't know they need a pull up resistor. And per data sheet if voltage greater than Vdd will enter programming mode. If you are saying that vdd is being applied externally accidentally no.