Thanks, I'm fully aware of the risks I'm taking ordering from China (Would Hong Kong make any difference in terms of getting the real thing? I doubt it). However I think it is not beneficial for me to order on eBay from Europe or the US because this leaves me with shipping costs similar (or worse) to what Mouser would charge. So if i want to spend that kind of money on shipping I'm very sure it would be better invested in ordering form Mouser.

Regarding the risk I could get something that damages other hardware, I would test every chip from China on a bread board with a NOP test before plugging it into anything else. This way I could at least be sure it is some kind of 6502 or pin compatible CPU.

(Personally, I wouldn't single out China, and I think it's a mistake to do so. The problem with marketplaces like ebay is that the buyer must be beware, and pay attention to the reputation systems in that marketplace, and dispute resolution and refund processes. Generally, if you make a complaint you'll get a refund with no questions asked, because reputation is so important. It remains to have a way to test what you've bought, and to take care that it doesn't damage your system if it isn't what it should be. Essentially, when shopping online in this way, you're in a different culture, and you need to have new habits and expectations.)

+1

This is where I wish we have a "like" button--but then it gets abused, so...

LIKE

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x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!

Of course you disagree! I'm addressing the general audience, not aiming to change your opinion. If you look at what you write, it remains consistent with two ideas
- not all problematic sellers are from China
- not all suppliers in China are problematic

Both from a practical view, and from a view of being fair and avoiding prejudice, I stick with my advice.

I usually do avoid arguments, however since it is my thread I feel somewhat obligated to give my 2 cents worth.


Sounds likely and I don't doubt it.


I do think the focus in BigEd's post is on "the marketplace" and how to deal with it/use it correctly. Personally I think it's great advice.


Regarding singling out China. Getting 6502's was actually the third time I ordered IC's from China (thru a local eBay like site) and the first time I got something obviously relabeled. Actually laser etched as 6502AD 4285, I'm not sure but this means NMOS 2Mhz?, well at least I run it on 1.8432Mhz. Why in the world would someone relabel a 2Mhz NMOS CPU as an 2Mhz NMOS CPU? (I remember this being discussed somewhere here in the forum also) Before someone asks the sellers page had just an all black generic 40 DIP IC without any markings as product photo. The other ones, some SAA1099 looking like new-old stock, at least the white marking didn't go off with acetone and they work, and some SN76489 looking obviously recycled with a little solder residue on the pins, scratches to top and bottom in dip packages that very much look like other chips from TI, also working.
So not everything from China is fake (technically not even the 6502's are fake since they are correctly relabeled , tho wrongly advertised as CMOS versions). Sure some of the chips are recycled, which I think is to be expected when buying long out of production parts.

EDIT: Actually both sellers (the SAA1099 and SN76489 came from the same seller) disappeared after I received my chips. So either another customer wasn't happy and gave a bad review or it is common practice for this kind of sellers to make one shot accounts on sites where reputation is not as critical as on eBay.

(I see now that I have previously tried to capture and summarise my thinking in a head post, for reference:

Bargain chips bought online - buyer beware!

with the aim of heading off repeated discussions.
)

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x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!

Sorry for being late but maybe this still helps http://6502.org/users/andre/icaphw/c64ser.html

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Author of the GeckOS multitasking operating system, the usb65 stack, designer of the Micro-PET and many more 6502 content: http://6502.org/users/andre/

What do they consider a "counterfeit" part? Would an NMOS 6502 relabeled to CMOS be counterfeit? How about a CMOS relabeled to CMOS? How do they handle the speed variations?

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Curt J. Sampson - github.com/0cjs

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x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!

Right. So a part that works fine would still be considered a counterfeit. That's a fair enough thing to track, and also happens to be a lot easier than "parts that do not meet spec," but it's not always what all of us are looking for. Personally, I'm willing to live with parts with the wrong label if it saves me significant amounts of money, and the risk of extra debugging isn't a big issue for me at the moment since it's all a learning experience anyway.

Do not take this as in any way dismissing others' perfectly valid preference for using properly labeled parts, for whatever reason. Just as I expect you not dismiss my preference for to trade cash savings for potential work as wrong.

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Curt J. Sampson - github.com/0cjs

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x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!

I think the bigger problem being that there is a real risk that what you get may not work at all, or may only be partially functional.

And without the original markings, if the semiconductor manufacturer did produce different revisions, unless you go to the effort of doing your own comprehensive testing (assuming you know what you are doing), you won’t know what you actually have. Which could trip you up later on when you try and use the relevant feature.

Also these are normally sold as ‘new’, but they are actually tarted up used / secondhand / preowned “pulls”. So that alone is fraud.

Mark

As do I. I'm not sure how this is relevant when I'm well aware that I'm (probably) not buying a genuine watchamaycallit, though.


It would be just as unacceptable as if I bought a WDC W65C02 from Digikey or Mouser and didn't get exactly that. But the proper analogy here is that you meet a guy in a back alley who offers, with a wink, to sell you a specific model of Rolls Royce for less than one tenth of the price at a dealership, and you went in knowing you were likely to get a used, older-model Bentley with a Rolls Royce badge on it. You might decide to pass on the purchase, but telling someone who can't afford the dealership price to go without a car, even though he's willing to take the risk (and can always buy two or three more if need be) seems uncharitable at best.


It's a problem only if you're unaware of this before you buy the part. Otherwise you just have a decision to make. And in retrocomputing, understanding this is pretty much a necessity. If you want to replace something as simple as the 6526 for your C64, you're not going to find a new, warrantied part. Welcome to hobby electronics!

And anyway, this is an issue for system designers even buying current production parts. No competent engineer should be putting parts from any vendor into his device without qualifying them first, and continuing to test them from time to time. Electronic device manufacturers have entire departments devoted to this kind of thing. (The hardware threads from Jed Margolin's Atari e-mail archives provide interesting reading on this. Try this one for a typical example; I'll leave it to you whether you want to call that Fujitsu 4116 DRAM "fake" or not.)


Well, being sold as new certainly would be fraud, but I'm not sure you're correct that they're "normally" sold that way. I just checked the first eight results for each of "6502" and "R65C02" searches on AliExpress, and not one of them claimed that the parts were new.

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Curt J. Sampson - github.com/0cjs