On Tue, 2005-05-17 at 17:39 +0100, Dominic Stratten wrote:
> 		Dear Dominic Stratten,
> 	
> 		Thank you for the sample request from National
> Semiconductor.
> 
> 		We regret that we are unable to fulfill the sample request
> as follows:
> 
> 			 Part Number : LM331N for 5 pieces.
> 			 Company Name: Picbits.
> 			 Application : Automotive.
> 
> 		Please contact your local distributor to obtain samples:
> 		http://www.national.com/contacts/
> 
> 		Regards, 
> 
> 		Regional Administrator
> 

No surprise there.

National used to me my absolute favourite company for parts selection.
They had a great variety of parts (especially power supply stuff), most
were rock solid, and their sample program was incredible. At one point
every sample was sent FedEx!

Then they switched to post. You still got the samples, but often they
took months to arrive.

Then they started restricting which email domains could get samples, for
the life of me I couldn't find one they didn't reject. I tried my
company, I tried an account from my school, tried personal domains, none
worked.

It was at that point I decided national was off my list. Maxim is great,
but their parts are SO pricey (when 50% of the cost of the project is a
Maxim part, that's not good...) I often end up going with someone else.
MChip is incredible with regards to samples, as is TI and analog.

Cypress seems to have a good sample program, but they mislabel their
customs forms incurring taxes and duty, once had to spend $25 in taxes
and brokerage for a few CPUs. So, they're off my list too.

Sure, I may not buy 1M parts a year, but in my mind, if you're not
willing to offer samples, you're off my list.

-----------------------------
Herbert's PIC Stuff:
http://repatch.dyndns.org:8383/pic_stuff/

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