I stopped by a local electronics-surplus store yesterday (Weird Stuff Warehouse in Sunnyvale). Out in front they had a rack full of VHS tapes, cassettes, and other stuff with a "FREE" sign on it. There were a couple of boxes of databooks of various sorts as well. I dug through and found two I decided to take home - Motorola, and National Semiconductor "Small Signal" transistor/diode manuals from a couple of decades ago. Most of the parts involved are now unobtanium as new-stock in through-hole packaging, of course, but there are still enough SMT versions and old-stock around to make these books interesting reading.
Looking through one, I saw something that I found rather surprising.
Am I missing something here, or is this as odd as it seems?