You can still buy (new) YM2151's. What?

[Drew Sebastino]

I was really puzzled when I saw this:

And it's not even just the YM2151 either; YM2612's (Genesis), YM2608's (PC98), YM3812's (SoundBlaster), and even YM2610's (Neo Geo) are all available. What I'm curious about is why are these still in production; I can't imagine many (if any) new devices use any of these, and while just about every arcade and every other pinball machine used these back when, I still don't see much of a demand for these as replacement parts given they probably never fail.

[nocash]

The date codes on the photos are saying 92 and 91. Might be unused old stock, or newly removed from old boards. Whatever else one might consider as brand new.

[Drew Sebastino]

I should learn to pay more attention... There seem to be no shortage of these running around anyway.

[TmEE]

None of those parts are in production, they're all pulls/recycled or NOS parts. Sometimes fakes are around too.

[Great Hierophant]

Be wary of the ones from China, they may be factory rejects, remarked clones or dead chips.