Pitney Bowes FastPac DI900 Manuallines page 66

3 • Barcode Theory
First
Barcode
Example
✍
TIP: 12=C because
after 9, letters are
used for counting
(example 10=A). See
Appendix A - Base
Code Theory for more
information on base
codes and counting.
3-14
But what are other codebases and what are their advantages?
The answer is that they can represent a larger biggest number per byte which
means that they can general count to higher numbers. This has the advantage
that the barcode can take up less space on the page.
In the table below we compare codebase 10(BCD), 16 and 36 to give some
idea of the difference.
Number to be converted = 300
Decimal 100's
Codebase 10 00011
(BCD)
3x100=300
Human read- 3
able barcode
value
256's
Codebase 16 00001
256x1=256
Human read- 1
able barcode
value
Codebase 36 1296
00000
0x1256=0
Human read- 0
able barcode
value
So as can be seen, a codebase 36 code takes less space than a 10 or even
a 16 so we could just use a codebase 36 or even a codebase 43 and the cus-
tomer would get a very short Barcode. The disadvantage of this however is
that the byte numbers can be greater than 9 and this means that the codes
are not so easy for people to read. As an example of this, if we were using a
Match code to track the number of sets, then in a code base 10 system a code
of 300 could be the 300th piece, but in codebase 36 this would be 8C which is
base 36 equivalent of 300.
The advantage of being able to read codebase 10 so easily should not be
underestimated as it makes it much easier to read the code and therefore to
debug problems. It is recommended, therefore, that wherever possible you
should get customers to use this type of code.
10's 1's
00000 00000
0x10=0 0x1=0
0 0
16's 1's
00010 01100
2x16=32 12x1's=12
2 C
36's 1's
01000 01100
8x36= 288 12x1=12
8 C
Totals
=300
300
=300
12C
=300
8C
SV61314 Rev. A