Don't know if it is just me, my timing or what but lately I have noticed that there is a lot less of the modern accessories for 8-bits that are usually available to ship. I recently was looking for a 2nd pi1541 and you just don't see them listed like they were, infact the seller I used for a lot of Commodore products had a very limited inventory of what he was selling. Another item is the new 8meg RAM boards for the Apple II, good luck finding the IIgs one or at least for the past couple months. Even the Fujinet for the Atari's has been out of stock for about 6 weeks now. I know he builds a limited supply of them in each batch but there has been nothing lately. I will write it all off as part of the "Chip Shortage" for now, and just keep watching and waiting for the items to return.
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I think the chip shortage is complete and utter BS... What you would call "Artificial Scarcity". The problem with this kind of thing is that, due to the hype, it can really cause problems in the various supply chains. It's kind of like people rushing to the store and buying all the bread, water, and batteries when there's a hurricane coming. Hording everything in sight.
However, I just have a hard time believing this is legit. For example, Samsung has been caught more than once in price fixing schemes. Here's an example from 2005.
https://www.justice.gov/archive/atr/public/press_releases/2005/212002.htm
You have the current Western Digital dibacle going on...
https://mashable.com/article/western-digital-flash-storage-contamination
Is it real? Who knows? I just don't buy it. Is Western Digital claiming that these two plants are the only ones that produce NAND? That doesn't sound like very responsible company stewardship to me when you're responsible for 30% of the worldwide RAM marketplace.
So going back to the beginning, I don't believe it... I think it's yet another corporate grab to take more money from people and businesses.
oh well. Rant over...
Regards,
][avok
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