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In the good old days of this hobby IC's were mainly available in DIP packages. There you started at the dot with pin 1 and went along counter clockwise until all pins were counted.

Times have changed and so have the component packages. Higher pin counts and smaller footprints were needed. This resulted in a multitude of the most peculiar packages like SMD and BGA. Unfortunately most SMD packages don't make the hobby any easier. You need professional multi-layer PCB's to be able to use these highly integrated circuits.

Luckily there are still enough usable parts available, like those in PLCC. As long as you know where to start, it is still quite easy to count your way around the component. But if you put a PLCC device in a socket, you will end up with a dual row of pins. And do you know how to count then? If you don't, you will appreciate these pages, I hope.