parts as demand has risen. Does anyone foresee the
possibility of the
manufacturing of clones, or electrically compatible work-alikes, of
certain discontinued ICs at some point in the future?
Most likely that is a no brainer, eventually if it already isn't true, you
should be able to have couple generic devices in each of the old common pin
configurations that could be programmed to emulate all the devices of that
pinout (ie 14 pin dual inline etc.). My guess is that the only reason it
hasn't happened yet are that supplies of the old devices adequately fill
the need cheaper than fakes.