[pjtaipale]

For me, the most famous example is DRAM chips in Sinclair ZX Spectrum. Sir Clive got them cheap because they were ones rejected at the production test. Spectrum issue 1 48 K model used 64 kbit chips where one half was broken, and the motherboard was then wired to only use the other half.

That was a time when hardware, particularly memory, was expensive. This was in 1982.