Afraid so. You must program the chip for it to do anything. You can make a programmer for a few $ though.

It's not a good sign that the PIC chip burnt out that badly. The VFD might still work but you can't really guarantee anything. Do Matrix Orbital sell the PIC chip seperately?

The Matrix Orbital LCD/VFDs are actually very expensive for what they are. What you're getting for your money is a nice looking preassembled module. The parts by themselves can be purchased cheaper from surplus electronic stores but to buy the parts new is much closer to the Matrix Orbital price.

- Trevor