So why didn't anyone tell me that the SOIC-8 version of the ATtiny85 was so hard to come by? Most places have it on backorder until 2024, and even if you can find it, it's way more expensive than I anticipated. If this was a one-off thing I wouldn't mind (or at least, not as much), but $1.50+ a chip hurts when you're looking at putting together 20 to 30 units.

I briefly toyed with the idea of bending the pins on the DIP8 version of the ATtiny85 so I could surface mount it -- in fact I'll probably get some boards ordered for that just to see how it works. But have my doubts about that being viable option for anything other than prototypes.

So now I'm researching modern AVRs, which are not only more capable, but that I can actually get my hands on before Supercon. Clock ticking, gotta make a decision soon...