Fake chips (6532AP)

The 6532AP RAM I/O chip in my Fluke 8080 pod failed and finding a replacement isn't easy as they've been out of production for years. I would borrow one from an Atari 2600 but those aren't the A or AP (2mhz) version required for the pod.

Buying anything from China is risky but usually what you get is used pulls cleaned up and sold as new old stock, I don't mind this if the chip actually works and it is cheap enough. In this case the chip was fake, what they obviously did is take any old chip with the same number of pins / package and print what ever they like on it.

 The chip they showed in the auction looks legit

 However this is what I actually received.

Huge shock it didn't work. I took another gamble and ordered some from utsource in Hong Kong this time, their feedback wasn't quite as bad as the other sellers and they looked to sell pulls rather than fakes. This paid off as the five I received from utsource all worked. 

In future I think I'll bite the bullet and buy locally though, even if they do want £11 a chip!