I recently placed an order with Jameco for various things, one of them being 556 timers. I was fascinated by the fact these were made by Intersil, stamped "INDIA", and had a date code from 1980.
How do components lay around for FORTY years before being sold by an established electronics seller? Unless Jameco bought these back in the early 80s and has sat on them for this long. Even if that's the case, this brings up another question: How can the purchasing department overproject sales this badly if that's what occurred? Maybe they got a good deal, but then there's opportunity cost.
More than anything I'm fascinated by this. This isn't even an obsolete part, except the manufacturer.