>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.

National Semi used to have an absolutely excellent agency in New Zealand
(IIRC it was Professional Electronics on Auckland's North shore). The agents
always had excellent stocks of chips, you could order them and have them
within a couple of days. They looked after the product line well, and
generally did good business. Then National decided that the agency was to be
handled as the NZ end of their Australian agents (which IIRC was Dick Smith
Electronics, a Radio Shack style company). The result was there was never
any stock, the people did not know anything, data books became like hens
teeth, and sales must have gone through the floor.

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