seeing "Latest Post: "Problems with 1000001101..." ( Today at 10:32:36 am )" come up as the latest post made my day.
The issues page on the github project may be a better venue for issues with the Debian installer, though I don't know that it hurts anything either way.
I believe 192.168.1.198 is the address I set it to use if it fails DHCP. Does your network have DHCP? Also, what is the IP address of your PC?
If it managed to join the network and set the LCD message it must have booted and got pretty far into the installer process. It does take a while to start SSH on the older devices, I'd suggest waiting ~10 minutes and check if it may have eventually started.
Also, are you trying to install Stretch or Buster?