Digikey degrading

You can exclude marketplace goods and you can select only items in stock, with a data sheet. I'd expect someone to know this when they've been using it for a while.

I miss the catalog. The internet is fine for finding things if you know what you're looking for, but you can't browse it like you did the catalog and go "What that?".

I agree, but the catalog would be 30,000 pages now.

I do like pictures. Sometimes the best way to google for something is to select "images."

I hate web sites (often Japanese for some reason) that show lists of model numbers with no summary specs or pictures, only links to PDFs.

My 1965 Allied catalog is fun.

They were always middlemen. Look at mouser, its owned by tti. They do no share stock.

Cheers

I just picked up (eBay) a reprint (Silver Anniversary in 1960) of the

1935-36 Radio's Master Encyclopedia. I have a number of those from the 50s and 60s to help me track down the names and specs of parts that have no catalogues that were ever saved.

My component catalogues from the early 70s come in handy too.

Al Kossow hasn't scanned all of them yet (bitsavers.org)

Part of my restoration library...

John :-#)#

I remember looking at MCUs from a Japanese company and having a hard time figuring out the rational behind their product selections. Many companies have a product line with members that are from a feature matrix. They may not make every possible item in that matrix, but it's clear the combinations they are supporting and which they are not yet interested in. The Japanese company's product line populated the matrix like a hen pecking at the ground, and a few products didn't even fit the matrix. Come to find out, they mostly brought out new products when a customer would buy a few million of a feature set specific to their purposes.

I remember asking a customer support engineer how to find out what feature combinations they supported and which they didn't among the hundred or so parts they made. He said I should read the data sheets... *all* of them! Essentially, they felt the customer should become the customer support engineer.

I started looking at ARM processors.

TTI may have bought Mouser, but they started on their own. I recall having a phone conversation with someone there, before Digikey or Mouser were very big. I asked what was up with the name. He didn't know either.

There use to be some but I find most of the links in my bookmarks are broken.

This one still works.

These links are not catalogs but they still work.

otherwise ... The internet is full of ephemeral places.

This brings up something I've been wondering about. I have two fairly large bookcases of data books from early 70's through mid-90s. Including Intel, Mot, TI, AD, BB, Fairchild, Signetics, zilog, amd, etc. plus a number of cross-reference catalogs and a number of volumes of ICMaster. I've kept them around when I did design at home but as the years wore on, they are mostly used if I am repairing older gear and came across an unfamilar device. Going through a downsizing and am wondering 1) Is there a library of old data books online? I know about bitsavers but didn't think they focused on data books. 2) Are there any scanning/archiving projects going where these data books could be donated?

In addition, I have a collection of Tek and HP product catalogs during that same era. Any scans of those anywhere on the net? J

Our TTI sales person(s) say that Mouser is completely separate.

I wish they weren't, if that is really the case.

boB