rohs Only Applies To Certain Countries And There Are Ways Around It Depending On Volume/applications. I'm Sure There's A Tax You Can Pay The Eu And They'll Look The Other Way, Kind Of Like The Carbon Tax They're Tossing Around Here.
The Real Reason The Original Whammy Isnt Around Is Because Its Digital. A Schematic Wont Show The Code Inside The Microprocessor. Ivl Wrote The Code, Digitech (dod) Did Not. Ivl Has The Rights To The Code, And Digitech Most Likely Doesnt Want To Have To Pay To License The Code Again When It Can Have Its Own Engineers Making Salary Do Up A New Code For Free.
As Far As Chip Availability Goes, There Are Websites/companies That Specialize In Antique, Obsolete, Out-of-production Chips. Many Engineering Companies Rely On These Companies For Many Thigns. Case In Point: You're Using A Microprocessor For Some Motion-control Thing (like A Printer Say) And Now The Manufacturer Says "hay Guyss We Just Daid A Die Shrink El Oh El But Dont Worry All The Timings Are Ezzzactly The Same" When In Fact They Are Not And The New Chip, Despite Being Advertised As 1 To 1 With The Old Chip Revision, Isnt Working In Your Fixture.
Do You:
A) Pay Your Engineers To Reverse Engineer The Timings And Spin A Whole New Revision Of Boards, Which You Have To Buy In Bulk Assembled From Somewhere In Southeast Asia When You Arent Sure The Life Left In The Product
Or B) Approach A Company With A Stockpile Of These Obsolete Chips, Get A Price Quote And Run With It, Keeping Your Engineers Time Free To Work On Getting The Next Product Out Sooner Than Later.
If Anyone Should Be Making A Reissue Wh-1 Its Ivl... Not Digitech. Want A Faithful Reissue, Get On Ivl. Thats If They Even Realized The Cult Following Their Once Sh*tbox Pedal Had 15 Years After The Fact. They Probably Dont Even Have The Code, Considering It Was Probably Done On A 486.
