I dont know how you say that the EOC goes low to signal completion of conversion.

This is what my copy of the data sheet says :

"End-of-conversion will go low between
0 and 8 clock pulses after the rising edge of start conversion. "

This means, that that after the conversion is complete, the EOC pin goes HIGH. And the same thing appears on the timing diagram also.

There is no confusion on this. Re look at the data sheet ( unless National has silently released a different 0808... )

Raghu