I discovered this Gem when surfing through pages about Engineers and their apparent lack of a sense of humour
This particular EE did have one ....
have a look at that datasheet PDF file and you really have to take note of the notations and their references at the bottom of the first page
Write Only Memory
This particular EE did have one ....
The origin of the WOM - the "Write Only Memory
An engineer at Signetics, frustrated by the long and useless sequence of approvals for data sheets (during which no actual checking occurred), once made up a spec for a "Write Only Memory" (a "WOM") and sent it along with a batch of other data sheets to be approved. After all, if you are selling "Read Only Memories", why not have a "Write Only Memory"? It's perfectly logical - - which is why the managers saw nothing wrong with the data sheet.
The WOM data sheet went through the approval chain, just fine, and wound up in Signetics' new products catalog. This came to the attention of the managers at Signetics, only after customers began asking for price and delivery. Signetics shortly printed up new "corrected" databooks, without any WOMs, and asked for the "erroneous" ones to be returned. But customers soon got word of why they asked for returns, and hid them properly.
have a look at that datasheet PDF file and you really have to take note of the notations and their references at the bottom of the first page
Write Only Memory