On Thu, Aug 24, 2017 at 11:16 AM, W2HX via vcf-midatlantic
I would think the most logical explanation for [faking] this chip was not that someone went through the trouble of trying to pass off one chip for another, but rather that the manufacturing process simply put the wrong label on the chip.
Here's the choices - someone in China relabeled a chip; or a semiconductor production assembly line for analog/digital chips, put a TTL device label on the chip instead? And if the latter, how did devices decades-old, which obviously failed any quality-control, end up available today and likely in some quantity? I think "China relabel" is more likely. There's a LOT of relabeling going on today. Typically, standard chips are relabeled as high-reliability expanded-temp chips, which is harder to detect. This fraud was stupid, at some level. On 8/24/2017 11:28 AM, Jason Perkins wrote:
Unless someone came across a large stash of the DTMF chips, got them for next to nothing, and was trying to pawn them off as something useful.
Neither chip is very "useful". I suppose someone making a TTL computer today would use a 74LS181 and some other 18X chips too. Ebay prices are one to a few dollars each. But who can second-guess the next person making money through chip fraud? This is what a race to the bottom looks like. Herb -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey in the USA http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net preserve, recover, restore 1970's computing email: hjohnson AT retrotechnology DOT com or try later herbjohnson AT retrotechnology DOT info