Jameco has been busted numerous times selling counterfeit clone parts, remarks, and non functional fake parts. Most of their stuff is fine, but specially anything NLA like 6821 is sketchy from Jameco. They buy from China and then mark it up, so you might as well buy right from China.

I am thinking the "soft legs" is part of their pulling and refinishing process. They some how stamp new legs on the ICs or they can solder bath them so they come out near perfect and straight. Can be a little sticky on new IC sockets. I usually wipe a new IC socket with one of my NVRAM modules and then the "soft legs" mate nicely and securely in the socket without trying to rip the socket contacts out upon removal.

I am still hoarding boxes of HD68B21P, but they will run out eventually. I recently tried these from AliExpress. 30 out of 30 worked fine and lived through at least a 24 hours burn in on a Bally MPU. I got EF6821P by STM all dated around 1996-1998
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/10pcs-lot-EF6821P-MC6821P-6821/32386539110.html

I think NeoLoch makes one. I have not tried it tho. Their ram tester has checked every single NVRAM module I have ever made and going strong. I have to say I don't like the blade system. I kinda wish they had a stand alone PIA tester and RAM tester now that I have an older stand alone RAM tester.

It is hard to fully test the PIA. You can even get a PIA that is able to read a port, but can't drive it, leaving it working in one setup but not in another. In most cases I have found if the PIA can drive a port, it could aslo read it. Bally U10 is a good place to test a PIA. I think it uses all the ports and goes between reading ports and driving them for switches, display latching and lamps. When I sold used pulls of these things I had a zif socket on a MPU and that is how I tested them.

As for Jameco if you google around you will find reports of people getting fake/mis marked 6502s. 74HC chips labeled as 74 plain, and etc. I still use them for the 22pin 0.4" 5101 sockets but that is about it.

A part like LM323K is one to be highly suspicious of. Power transistors and Voltage regulators are not something to buy from China (or Jameco as far as I'm concerned) as the clones are greatly underspec'd. They will work if you don't run them anywhere near the limits, but if you drive them hard, poof.

With a precise scale you can usually weigh a transistor or v-reg against a known real one and tell is a fake clone. The silicon / whatever inside of them is heavier on real parts.

I had a box used as repackaging come in recently. I noticed the box was a FAKE STMicro packaging for 7805V. It had Engrish and an upside down logo on it just like the Clone M2732As come in. This stuff is winding up in the hands of domestic resellers. People reselling parts should pay close attention.

For voltage regulators its time to come up with good switching buck regulator retrofits. I have a 5v power supplies running off of LM2679T-5.0. They are like $5 each but run really cool/efficient and play nice in pinball boards as long as you wire it up right.

The chips probably get scuffed up from being in a large stack of heavy PCBs. Sometimes the scuff marks are even 0.1" spaced like a dip40 chip was scratching it from above. The one with the unique logo is SG Thomson and was made when they became/bought out by STMicro in the late 80s.

I think the SC44067P is a classic Stern part number? Or at least I would see those labeled chips on mpu100 boards usually. 620-29 is Bally part number that will be stamped on pias for earlier Bally games. A lot of times you can even tell motorola 6821 imprint was scratched off and changed it to 620-29 for Bally.

yeah its def a 6820 PIA, but why that part number??? probably a Stern thing based on how often they are stuffed into MPU100 boards is my guess.

5A-8972 is WMS number for PIA if I remember right. Motorola did the same thing for WMS as they did for Bally. You will find some chips with the normal 6821 imprint visibly scuffed off and the WMS part number was stamped on.

Yep. Looks like Motorola changed the imprint to a custom part number for their customer (Stern?).

Williams 6820 pia part number I believe is 5a-8972 .