the front panel the lenses are on move back and forth when i turn the
focusing knob like they should. i did try to use the magnifier and im
afraid i still had trouble.

i've read that the viewing screen on 124's have 4 compositional lines,
but mine does not have that, it has a circle in the middle (i can't
remember the term for it, but that circle is always in focus) and then
little black lines radiating out from that. the little black lines make
it really hard to see if it's in focus through the magnifier!

i CAN see a very, very tiny difference when using the magnifier but
it's a really small change in focus when i turn the knob, whereas in my
negative the subjects were so out of focus they were just giant blobs,
not even recognizable. is that huge difference in what i see in my
viewfinder and what i see in my negative just part of using a TLR?