I really do appreciate that younger generations are eager to write new software and push things forward — but reinventing lukewarm water isn’t the way to go. And yet, here we are, deep into the era of exactly that.
That said, it seems like Kitty and tmux are actually quite different tools after all.
The author is clearly curious and leads in knowing a lot to begin with.
The work-behind-the-work is looking up data sheets for the chips involved, desoldering them without damaging them, in the case of memory resoldering with hookup wire and hopefully its access is slow enough that it can work fine over the length of the wire, following hunches, trying things, and knowing (for next time) the possibility of using a pinhole camera or something of the sort when drilling shallow holes and looking through for tamper traces to avoid in further drills, if so desired be.
As others have mentioned, it would be interesting if the author stuck in and got past the tamper checks to see if it would work as normal. Oh well!