The "record board" you mention is actually two 'remote' boards - they should snap apart at the score line in the middle. This was to connect back to the main board via cat5 cable. It just locates the buttons and possibly sensor a short distance away from the main board. I am not exactly sure how the cat5 terminates at the main board, so you might have to do more digging there. I don't ever recall seeing a main board with a cat5 header. If nothing else, you could just route the individual cat5 wires to the respective button/power/LED points on the main board.
As far as a parts list, I am not sure... it should use the same tactile push buttons as the original board, some small 1/4 watt resistors values as noted on the board and leds (same as the main board) and a couple of cat5 headers.
As far as the flashed chips. Looks like tstraub left the firmware files in the post I mentioned, so you'd just need all the associated hardware and IDE software to flash the PIC.
Overall, I think you are sort of at a crossroads. You enjoy building boards like this as a hobby (I do, too, to some extent), but the world has moved on to more plug-n-play solutions which are generally arduino based. You can treat this like an archaeologic dig and try to round up all the ancient (in computer/internet terms) wisdom and hardware if you enjoy that sort of thing. Or if you just want a cheap, working controller, possibly switch over to one of the arduino 'banger' series, or other arduino solutions. Those will program with a simple USB cord and would likely have a much more active development community, currently. For the price of ordering components, populating these boards, and getting set up with an archaic PIC programming system, you could be well on your way to purchasing an arduino and relay shield or other modern control shield.
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