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What can fit in 95 bits

category: general [glöplog]
Today I learned that a standard bar code holds 95 bits of information. Can anything interesting be done with 95 bits (besides a bar code).
added on the 2009-07-16 15:30:36 by xteraco xteraco
That's exactly 11.87500 8-bit ascii characters. "Hello World" will fit.
11 and a bit bytes? A short bit of text, a long number, or a very small number of instructions for an exe (there are demos that small, but calling them 'demos' really is stretching it)
added on the 2009-07-16 15:44:41 by psonice psonice
added on the 2009-07-16 15:48:02 by Tigrou Tigrou
Using a 4bit cpu like the intel 4004 could help you fit a little more.
or brainfuck, since there are only 8 instructions, an opcode can fit in only 3 bits, thus leaving 95 bits / 3 = 31 commands ! WOW
added on the 2009-07-16 15:58:32 by Tigrou Tigrou
i was just thinking, with some kind of VM with a demo-centric instruction set of just a few instructions a bar code demo compo would be just about possible
added on the 2009-07-16 16:01:09 by psonice psonice
39614081257132168796771975168 different things.
added on the 2009-07-16 16:01:12 by Preacher Preacher
psonice: write a demo player for barcodes... kind of like barcode battler for demos
added on the 2009-07-16 16:02:56 by evilpaul evilpaul
hmmm... actually... can i delete that last post and keep the idea for myself?
added on the 2009-07-16 16:03:34 by evilpaul evilpaul
I was just about to post what evilpaul said :)
added on the 2009-07-16 16:04:17 by xeron xeron
Quote:
psonice: write a demo player for barcodes... kind of like barcode battler for demos
added on the 2009-07-16 16:02:56 by evilpaul

hmmm... actually... can i delete that last post and keep the idea for myself?
added on the 2009-07-16 16:03:34 by evilpaul


sure, just use the delete button
added on the 2009-07-16 16:04:17 by psonice psonice
you can also store "goatse.cx" url, thus leaving very usefull information to future generations who will find you barcode...
added on the 2009-07-16 16:07:08 by Tigrou Tigrou
lol just got a strange idea: we could use it to idenitfy products in our store and we won't have to remember the price for every product!
xeron: then how about we make it cross platform too? you do the amiga player and i'll do the speccy one. same barcode proceduraly generating the same demo on different platforms..
added on the 2009-07-16 16:14:48 by evilpaul evilpaul
paul: is there a bar code reader for these platforms?
added on the 2009-07-16 16:17:27 by psonice psonice
haha.. good point - no*
but, hey, it's only 11.87500 characters :D

* ok, there probably are
added on the 2009-07-16 16:19:04 by evilpaul evilpaul
11.875 characters if you can type the full 256 characters ;) Some kind of alphanumeric "democode" would be cool though, and not all that much longer.

Any system with an api accessible camera on it would work really well though. Do we need a fixed screen size so it's multi-platform?
added on the 2009-07-16 16:24:23 by psonice psonice
Android has a nice camera api for which a barcode reader (and a game, in the market) has been made...

Yeeeeah!
added on the 2009-07-16 16:30:49 by m0d m0d
no, let the different platforms interpret the data slightly differently if they need to - they don't need to be exactly the same

actually considered a multi-platform demo (two platforms using the same data) a while ago but never got around to making it
added on the 2009-07-16 16:32:49 by evilpaul evilpaul
a werkzeug stacking system storing only boxes on barcode would be very cool.

eg :
000 = cube
001 = sphere
010 = rotate
011 = translate
100 = resize
101 = multiply
110 = add
111 = color


added on the 2009-07-16 16:35:31 by Tigrou Tigrou
So has iphone, probably winmobile + symbian too. OSX has camera support, not sure about windows. Flash has camera support so a flash port is possible...
added on the 2009-07-16 16:36:06 by psonice psonice
paul: just thinking if it does basic writing pixels stuff, it's handy to know when the end of the row arrives :)
added on the 2009-07-16 16:37:29 by psonice psonice
Next up: The barcode scroller. Uhm.... yeah... everyone get your PDA/phone up to the bigscreen and snap away to see what it says...
added on the 2009-07-16 16:41:06 by m0d m0d

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