Barcodes are evil.

Hobbes

http://www.igprc.freeserve.co.uk/barcodes/barcodes.htm

Stephen

My job would be a hell of a lot harder without barcodes

SantaHoe

Yeh, I heard about that whole bar-code thing a few years back.
And it's quite funny, if you look at most bar-codes, they do have three sets of two-grouped bars that are longer than the others, at the begining, middle and end.
I don't know for sure if they do scan as 6's, but it's a nice paranoid fantasy anyway

Lump

Dodgy ****e. What a pack of fools

FreaK_BrutheR

Get "Naked" out in ure video store.

Stephen

Yeah I dunno about those long lines being sixes... I know that when I manually enter a barcode number on the till they don't feature... Anyways, even if they do represent sixes they're not even grouped together.

SantaHoe

Yeh, not grouped together, but there are three sets of them, one group at the start, another in the middle, and one at the end.
So it's not like they are a random occurrence.

Ooh spooky

I'm just waiting for someone with a lot of knowledge of barcodes (*cough*)-nerd-(*cough*) to post with a good explanation that'll put my worried mind at ease.

/me looks towards the thin, pale gent in the corner, wearing sandals, drinking his prune juice, and looking all sheepish and out of place.

Shiminay

Maybe they were designed that way as something of a practical joke to the world???

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All the best,

Dav
@B^)
My page of stuff

Hobbes

What someone ask for Nerd man?! *dons disguise*

Taaaa daaaaaa....

Might be worth your while looking on the net as everything I'm about to say is from memory.

Barcode characters are normally composed of Black AND white lines.

Various barcode structures have different formats.

The easiest to read is Code 39 (possible to read manually if you work with Code 39 a lot). This allows Alpha+ numbers and starts and ends with a * (normally called a guard bar) . Guard bars tell the scanner where barcode starts and stops easily.

Each character is made up of 5 white/black lines in a Code 39 and never change.

Now the barcode shown in the post above is a UPC barcode (Universal Product Code, I think). It only allows Numbers (again don't quote me on that)

That particular Barcode format has three guard bars. Outside are "bwb" (b=black thin, w=white thin, B=black thick, W=white thick). The middle guard bar is "wbwbw". No number in a UPC is made up totally of thin lines.

It is also made up of alternating widths. So while the number 6 might look thin on the right hand side, on the left it will be reversed (I think).

Shiminay

Nice anorak Hobbes - did you buy it yourself or did Mummy pick it out from the 3rd hand knacker shop?

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All the best,

Dav
@B^)
My page of stuff

Hobbes

Kharn it is a well known fact that nerds are born wearing thier anorack.

So remember this next time you see one... it's not a coat they are actually naked!