It’s with a little nostalgia that I write this. When I was a teenager on the East Coast, designing and building radio and electronics gear, Allied Radio (now Allied Electronics & Automation) was my “go to” for electronic parts. And without revealing my age, I will say that a mail order was just that—the United States Post Office; UPS wasn’t yet available in my area. There was no Internet, and Ethernet was not yet reality. And if you needed more information, you relied on the Allied Catalog as parts descriptions were fairly complete.
Fast forward to today, and Allied Electronics has been accumulating a treasure trove of datasheets. The company just announced there are now more than 1.1 million of them, and the number keeps growing. From semiconductors and ICs, capacitors and resistors, connectors through industrial sensors, automation and control equipment, tools plus wire and cable, you can probably find the info you need. Getting datasheets at Allied doesn’t cost anything—other than your time spent in searching and downloading.