Beige 4A - black screen and buzzing, despite new parts

[AwkwardPotato]

VDPs can be finicky, but they're not delicate enough to be damaged by careful extraction. A few thoughts:

• The pins on TI parts of this era have a tendency to tarnish quite badly; might cause contact issues with the socket. Careful use of very fine grit sandpaper/a pencil eraser and IPA can help with this.
• Not sure if this applies to all boards, but all of my 99s use single-wipe DIP sockets for the VDP. This was presumably a cost-saving measure BITD and I wouldn't be surprised if the single-wipe sockets (which make less contact with the IC pins to begin with) are responsible for some reliability problems after 40 years.
• Standard dual-wipe sockets are perfectly suitable replacements. While the gold-plated machined types will also work fine, they're far more expensive, and intended for different applications.
• Kind of obvious, yes -- but it's important that the notch on the VDP faces towards the keyboard connector. Oftentimes there's a white dot painted on the VDP socket, which can be mistaken for a Pin 1 indicator. On 2 of my 3 boards, however, the dot is in the corner opposite Pin 1. Caused a bit of head scratching once...
• Weak color could just as easily be caused by other components between the VDP and the video connector, not that it matters if the end goal is to install an F18A. There have been reports of the crystal by the VDP drifting/failing, for instance.