sparkylabs:
Right, well we did but mine was a bit unstable so I'm avoiding it.
Well then, it did not work in that situation did it? My guess is, if it had worked adequately, you'd still be using it. Perhaps Dr. Dave was right after all.
What you could try is constructing an external crystal oscillator circuit, optimized for the type of crystal you want to use, or use a pre-built oscillator, then feed the output of that into the Rs input of the MC14541B.