Fairlight-CMI

It's very hard to say what will happen to mostly-ttl things like fairlights and old computers in the future, but there is so much old digital hardware floating around, it's not likely the world's supply of _reusable_ ttl will dry up any time soon.

I'd have to say compared with other items of similar age, say Tektronix or HP test instruments the parts are more readily available. A IIx contains almost no truly custom, irreproducible logic, unlike some other 80's stuff. The most obscure and 'hard-to-copy' items would likely be analog synth-specific ICs, bipolar proms, eproms and pals. Also, compared with, say an Emulator II, PPG Wave, Waveterm, Rhodes Chroma, or Prophet, or some other 80's synth, the parts are slightly more common in general, and the design is VERY logical and well documented.

In that regard they're a lot like an original Apple II plus, or maybe a vintage coin-op PAC-man game. Mostly (95%) TTL. The only quite rare parts are the analog audio chips.

Also, almost any old IC can be had for a price, it's just a question of whether the price is viable or not.

In order of rarity, I'd say it's like:

SSM2045, CEM3320, DBX2150, Motorola MC3242 dram mux. (CMI01, 01A channel cards)

Some of these can be had by ripping apart other, dare I say lesser, synths or even old mixer desks or PABX equipment.

Harris bipolar proms (graphics card)

2716 and 2732 eproms and various pals.

Motorola 6840 Timer chip

There are a lot of Motorola 6821s in the IIx but they are actually very easy to get, being a big part of lots of coin-op and pinball machines.

With determination many of the non-analog parts can be replaced with modern counterparts, old roms with newer bigger roms with pin adjustments, pals with peels or gals. Even collections of custom ICs can be replaced with FPGAs, it's all a matter of whether it's worth the trouble.

And never throw away your old Series III audio boards, cause they contain parts common for spares with the series IIx as well.

Joe