I spend my work day a lot of the time looking for parts because
of 'non-availability'.
Parts in general are getting hard to get. New parts only come in
Surface Mount Technologies which leaves most of the experimenters and
hobbyists out of luck, unless they pop for the expensive tools needed
to deal with these parts. [Commercial ahead: Check out my
employer at http://www.matric.com where we do this kind of thing. :-)]
Also with the large scale sell offs of parts there are problems getting
them.
For example Motorola has gotten out of the semiconductor component biz.
they sold off the Discreet, and Logic to an other firm some place out
West. I've got the details at work some place if any one wants them.
Harris has sold off the 4000 CMOS line and some other logic to Texas
Instruments.
Siemines has re-org'ed them self to become "Infinion" (sp?).
Any time some thing like this happens there is always a culling of parts.
As to the Y2K issue, last week Intel reported that they where worried
because their over seas raw material producers could not demonstrate Y2K
compliance. Doesn't mean there is a problem, just that they could not
produce the paper saying there was no problem. If the raw materials
like semiconductor grade silicon are not available then there won't be
parts IF there is a problem, for a lot more people than Intel.
So start hording at the hamfests I guess... :-)