[ScottishColin]

Here's a couple of 'new' legs from my project - one was the character ROM and the other one of the BASIC ROMs, both of which had snapped legs (in my defence, I only broke one of them myself....).

For the character ROM, I snipped off a leg of a potentiometer and used that - it's a little wider than the other legs, but it works in the original socket.

For the other, I did as suggested above - used a leg from a new socket donor.

The job wasn't particularly difficult (even for me who has never done anything like this before) - just fiddly to hold the chip, hold the solder, hold the leg in the right place and hold the iron at the same time.

For the new chips I bought, I used Cricklewood Electronics - they seemed reasonably priced to me although I expect if you hunt you can get them cheaper; they were quick and the web site was up to date and I would use them again.

In terms of desoldering, I started as suggested by cutting each leg and removing one leg at a time, but over time even as a complete novice I found I could with patience get whole chips out one leg at a time by using a solder sucker and the iron on just enough heat to flow the solder - any more heat and I lifted a couple of pads which gave me problems to deal with. I suspect the odd pad lifting is inevitable on older electronics, but I tried my hardest to avoid them.

Getting old sockets out I found harder and the advice I took from here was to cut the socket's plastic case before I desoldered one pin at a time. I expect that can easily be done without butchering the old socket with the right tools and technique, but as I say, I had never done anything like this before.

Good luck.

Colin.