Old ICs are getting impossible to find now

[exxos]

Of course it's of no great suprise really. Thought the last of my VL1772 stock sold this week. Those were new ics and not sourced from China. However even the china / used market has long since dried up. I use all sorts of parts sourcing companies and they cannot find a source anymore. I did find one company who had the VL1772 but they are £50 a pop now.

I've noticed a lot of stuff I buy like cpus seems to be the "bottom of the barrel" parts now. More and more failures and prices are always going up. It's become a huge issue these days. Same as I mentioned I can't obtain the 30pin simm sockets anymore and other items. Even basic TTL chips seemed to have vanished off the UK market.

Back in 2020 I panic bought as much stuff as I could to keep producing kits and keep stock of parts in my store.But my own stock is running dry now. I've thrown countless hours into sourcing parts but it seems somewhat futile now.

I use a lot of DRAM chips in various RAM upgrades. If that chips vanishes (I've not checked for a few years) then it renders all those kits obsolete. I doubt I'd be able to redesign all those kits again to use a different IC. My PCB days are basically over and I don't really have the motivation to start over again anyway.

While I have purchased a lot of Atari STs over the years. The mostly got used as test machines in the beginning. I sold off the good cases as people know. Later purchases were mostly smashed machine off the internet. I've already stripped the majority of those parts and got them in my store. Though even buying basically scrap machines is getting into £100 type areas now. So it's not really sustainable to keep doing that either.

So I would advise anyone wanting to stock up on anything to do it sooner rather than later. Not all my stock is in my store but there isn't much left of a lot of things now. Or even buy stock from China before it's to late.

[HigashiJun]

Totally agree.

It will be very hard sooner or later to have our retro stuff repaired...

:(

[alexh]

My first google and I found VL1772 NOS parts advertised for $22 each with a stock of 33k

Capture.JPG

Whether they actually have any is another thing.

30-pin SIMM sockets I bought 10 last week in UK "off the shelf" for £5 each which I thought was a bit much but hey.

Custom ICs are getting much harder to find. Thanks to many re-creation PCB designs for Atari, Commodore and Apple products. It's almost impossible to source Amiga A3000 ICs and A1200 ICs are now not economically viable to buy. As for Falcon030 ICs don't get me started. There's one guy with all of them who thinks they are going to be his retirement fund.

[exxos]

My first google and I found VL1772 NOS parts advertised for $22 each with a stock of 33k

Whether they actually have any is another thing.

I contact them every year ( and 2 days ago) and they always come back saying no stock. Honestly don't know why they bother keeping the listing up.

Pretty much contacted every company on every part sourcing site I can find. All it seems to accomplishes me and getting spammed. I honestly think those parts sourcing are just a total scam of just being there to get your contact details and nothing more. Always claim to have stock but they absolutely never do. With the odd rare exception here they are silly money.

[alexh]

I contact them every year ( and 2 days ago) and they always come back saying no stock. Honestly don't know why they bother keeping the listing up.

I did wonder because their listing on AliExpress is now closed

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1953984282.html

[exxos]

I did wonder because their listing on AliExpress is now closed

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1953984282.html

Yep not seen them on Ali for a few years now.

For example :

(no price means no stock)

1.PNG

2.PNG

I've spammed Alibaba with quotation requests and similar luck. I do keep trying.. but .. I've seen the "trend" for a long time. Pretty much what I bought in pre-2020 is all there is now.

[alexh]

I believe you. Just for a laugh, I'll use my work email address (Toshiba) and see if they are any more likely to have any stock.

[exxos]

I believe you. Just for a laugh, I'll use my work email address (Toshiba) and see if they are any more likely to have any stock.

:thumbup:

[tOriman]

Hi,

So, maybe it's time to build a working well simple FPGA replacement of 1772?

Regards
tOri

[exxos]

So, maybe it's time to build a working well simple FPGA replacement of 1772?

Not sure if one exists. Maybe @ijor knows ? I think the DMA does ?