Question: I've just soldered a SOIC-16 am26c32 on to a breakout board.

The datasheet shows the orientation of the chip by means of a semi circle at one end (<http://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/am26c32.pdf>). However, on the actual device, there is no such semi circle to be found - only the name of the chip.

Am I to assume that pin 1 is the bottom left, when the chip shows the writing the right way up?

Answer: 
Look more closely in the *Mechanical Data* section of the datasheet. It shows that the edge is shaved off along the whole row of pins that includes pin 1:

[![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/lUs1Y.gif)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/lUs1Y.gif)
In addition to the features already mentioned, you may also see a white dot on the chip by pin 1. It's more common on DIL packages, but I've seen it on SOIC too.