I have salvaged obsolete ICs with broken legs using resistor leads. You have to hard solder them in at that point. Using an old IC socket frame helps hold things in place.

For something like an ROM that is easily replaceable with an EPROM, i would just pitch it and burn an EPROM.

I honestly usually just throw away masked ROMs and use an EPROM. Normally the masked ROMs legs are all tarnished and yuck 30 years later.

Great questions. Thanks for the post.
-mof

I do the same trick with spare leads off of other parts. Just make sure they're not too flimsy, and usually you get one or two "shots" at it, so you have to be really slow putting them in the sockets. Did this with a CEM chip once and a Reticon BBD both and repaired them that way. Not chips you wanna break a leg on.

But sometimes if they're worn down or oxidized and corroded they just snap off really easily after they're out of the socket. I will tin the pins if that is the case so it doesn't happen to the other legs on obsolete expensive stuff.

Good luck

On my boards; I've just direct wired to a via on the mpu board using some small solid gauge rework wire. It works. On mine I had a 6821PIA break a pin... and at the time I didn't have a spare. So; out came the soldering iron and some wire. Been working great for years.

You can always take a dead chip and cut the entire leg off from the top and solder it directly to the broken chip leg [after a good cleaning].. Works great and looks just like the rest of the chip legs if soldered well.

I did my first ones this week actually. I used some ends off of extra capacitors I had. I couldn't find my needle nose wires so I burned my fingertips pretty bad haha.

I've had this happen on an old Atari arcade board. I took a fresh leg off a junk IC and jammed it in the socket then inserted the IC and tinned a little solder between the IC body/scrap of leg and the new leg.