Fast forward to the first week of July in 2019. I was off work for a week, so it was time to get busy.

The only thing left to do at this point is basically start buzzing out the connections. This was a very painstaking process that took DAYS to perform. 

Basically, I started with every chip, Went into Google Docs (so i could do realtime saves) and put down the chip number/location, and pins. and buzzed out where they all went. I called this my netlist chart. 

Did I mention that was a painstaking process? This was the only way I knew of on how to get the design into something I could work with and study. 

Basically started with this: 

I had mspaint open on my laptop sitting next to the card, where I was recording the information as I went along. Basically checkmarking off one thing at a time as I did the work:

Then you have to catch mistakes as you go along. For example, as you branch out one chip at a time, eventually get to the chip at the other end. This will allow you to cross-check the connections you already made and check for mistakes. Oh.. and I found many. had to go back and double check multiple times. 

Eventually after multiple days of painstaking eye-stabbing work, and needing a neck brace afterwords, you end up with this: 

Granted, this is just one board! There are still 3 more to go after this one. WHEEEEEEEEEEE i just wanna go jump off a bridge at this point. Luckily, I didn't. This took some serious dedication. 

Eventually, you end up with something like this: 

This is great! but... not really helpful. Now it was time to spend another few weeks on turning that into a schematic. 

By the end of this, I was extremely exhausted. Going it alone was starting to take its toll by this point:

More later....