you know, I realized before you replied that the IC is missing a leg in the one corner, and if you line it up a certain way (the correct way) you'll see one of the socket holes has a brass color compared to the silver ones. pretty interesting way of keying it... whatever lol
I had to do a substantial amount of reworking on the neckboard last night. every single wire that's soldered through-hole on it was done uh... very shitty. the fat black wire seriously was this twisted up mess and maybe 2 strands made it through the hole. I can't believe this thing worked. I also am extremely OCD when it comes to the color drive transistors being all bent and twisted up. I pulled those all out and cleaned a shit ton of flux off of everything and bent them back straight and put them back in.
the focus wire was the best though. it was spliced, like bent over, and covered with masking tape. I mean, I understand this is probably one of the clumsier and weird focus socket designs and I'm not like the most masterful technician on the planet or anything, but I was able to get the old section out and installed properly in about 3 minutes.
I'll share some photographic goodness later.