costello@stx.UUCP (Michael E. Costello) (01/27/91)
In article <997@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU>, dgc@euphemia.math.ucla.edu (David G. Cantor) writes: > > The US Postal service gives a discount if the appropriate > barcode for the zipcode is used. > > Does anyone know the US Mail barcode standard? > > dgc > Yes--it's the 7-4-2-1-0 code. Tall bars mark the beginning and end of the ZIP--discard them. Next, mark off each group of five bars. Notice that exactly 2 of the 5 are tall in each case. Take the sum of the digits corresponding to the values above. The sum is the ZIP digit, with the convention that 7+4=0 (neat, huh?) The last group of five bars is a checksum--it is the number that must be added to the sum of the ZIP digits to yield a multiple of 10. ==>Michael Costello costello@world.std.com ==>BCS*Mac, The Boston Computer Society Macintosh User Group ==>P.O. Box 2591; Woburn, MA 01888 617-631-8188