Curious track in a remote control

I'm in the process of slightly adapting an IR remote control for another
purpose. The pcb is about 6 x 1.5 inches, LED at one end and main
electronics at the other end.
So ouput line goes from the electronics end, along the outer long edge to
the LED end , back down the other long edge to the driver transistor and
then another long trace back to the LED. The superfluous? loop is not tapped
along its path , so why the circuitous route? and not a simple inch long
track at the main electronics end and one long trace to the LED

 

He was not averse to using , elsewhere, 000 ohm "resistors" to
de-spaghettify

 

My mod works fine, so reason for loopiness stands unknown.
Added in a dual, large timing spreads, monostable to go between the r/c
pulse source and the LED driver. To gate the output, by a moveable window.
To narrow down the active part of a pulse stream, in some serendipitous
setting of this URC , that gives some function on an otherwise piece of dead
kit, itself with unobtanium remote control. Then via emulation , expand that
up to full range of IR codes for full operation

 

I'd previously tried going down the LIRC route,
www.lirc.org/
similar to your interface, but my "LIRC" hardware did not work with my pc .
The LIRC library seems to have no recent updates, and LIRC would still be no
good for trying to "exercise" an otherwise dead and unsupported piece of kit
with no OEM or replacement or suitable URC-setting R/C

An alternative approach for your VCR situation would be a cheap LCD-less
learner remote with Eeprom strorage, learn the VCR codes and remove the
batteries and store away