How to Program your own Arduino using the new ATMega88P chip

PROBLEM: It's not in AVRdude's list of chips
SOLUTION: on the command line for avrdude, use -F to force it to program anyway even if it doesn't recognize the chip, so

avrdude -F .... blah blah blah..

In Arduino017 IDE, here are the secret ninja moves David Mellis showed me:

1. Setting up the Arduino IDE to recognize your Atmega88P:

On the MacOS (Windows is similar, just search for boards.txt in Arduino folder)

Open the text file:
/Applications/Arduino.app/Contents/Resources/Java/hardware/boards.txt
You can get to this folder by navigating to Applications folder and then Ctrl-clicking
on Arduino.app and selecting Show Package Contents.

At the top of the file, paste:

atmega88.name=ATMega88 - MAS863 - Daveduino

atmega88.upload.protocol=stk500
atmega88.upload.maximum_size=14336
atmega88.upload.speed=19200
atmega88.upload.using=avrispmkii

atmega88.bootloader.low_fuses=0xe2
atmega88.bootloader.high_fuses=0xdd
atmega88.bootloader.extended_fuses=0x00
atmega88.bootloader.path=lilypad
atmega88.bootloader.file=LilyPadBOOT_168.hex
atmega88.bootloader.unlock_bits=0x3F
atmega88.bootloader.lock_bits=0x0F

atmega88.build.mcu=atmega88
atmega88.build.f_cpu=8000000L
atmega88.build.core=arduino

##############################################################

Save it and reopen Arduino, You should see your board listed as an option under the regular BOARDS menu.  success!

2. Edit the programmers.txt file so that your programmer (i.e. AVRISPmkii) knows you are forcing it to program despite the fact it can't recognize the chip you are talking to.

programmers.txt file is found here:

/Application/Arduino.app/Contents/Resources/Java/hardware

In my case, I added the following line (it wasn't there before)

avrispmkii.force=true

3. Make Arduino tell you EVERYTHING

First, QUIT ARDUINO
On the Mac OS,
in your user(home directory)Libraries->Arduino ->preferences.txt file

add the following:

build.verbose=true
upload.verbose=true

this forces the Aruduino IDE to report EVERYTHING.
Before this option was enabled, Arduino would just tell me I had the wrong chip connected.  After this option I was able to see everything and know that even though it complained, it still got through and was able to program.  Wunderbar~

Thank you microprogramming guru David Mellis!