This is probably a dumb question- but if one had the capital to reverse-engineer, wouldnt it be much cheaper to legitimately buy the original engineering data for an abandoned and obsolete technology?
I don't follow very much anymore, so forgive me if it seems I should know the answer.
(I mean for the MOS ICs, not the 68k, which is obviously still valuable)
I'm sure I've read several times the original chipset designs have been long-lost. Even Commodore had to reverse engineer them to make ECS/AGA if rumours are to be believed.
