well, first I cringed when I saw how far he went to disassemble the thing (I've done it myself but I have a little experience). but if he can follow the traces from the "serial" header to the first IC chip that it comes to, then we could determine if it is in fact a serial interface.
in reply #2, it appears as that board is the main control board and that there was a 16 pin header cable that went from that to the display board. and from what I can see on the display board is that it's "only" a display board, no controller (but I'm probably wrong). It would help if you copied down the numbers that appear on those ICs. I know you cant put logos here but if you could maybe say it's a stylized "M" for Motorola or "TI" for Texas Instruments and make each line separate. Like a chip I'm looking at now has:
Atmel 632
93C46
PC
ps and good luck, we're all counting on you.