Originally Posted by
JohnHaine
Typical propagation delay of the HC125 is 9 ns, the difference in delay between channels of the same chip will be pretty small, significantly less than this. The reason for connecting outputs (and corresponding inputs) together is to increase drive current ability. Frankly provided that they are all driven in the same direction there is highly unlikely to be enough skew between outputs for excessive currents to be a problem, Besides as this works for the OP then clearly the chip has not been fried!