Well, changing the config did it, but only for the LCD sample program where it just repeats saying Hello World. On this key press program, I am getting mixed results. Sometimes it's a single line of blocks. Other times it's a cursor or 9 characters like arrow symbols and slashes. When I press a button, each one yields a ?. If I hit the reset button, those characters side step off of the lcd.

At one point, when I played with the power up and watchdog timers, I did get the words "press any key" however, several of the letters were missing.

The schematic of the board is available at the links provided. Nothing was changed, or requires to be changed on the jumpers. I have JP2 set to USB power instead of a wall wart.

The chip I have matches the pinout of the 4550 exactly, so the configuration should be the same. I thought buying the completed board and using the sample programs was going to be straight forward. Silly me.