Question

I have a barcode field on an paper form produced by a legacy AS/400 system that I need to convert to a more modern reporting system. I have been trying to track down the encoding that this barcode field uses, but I have not been able to find anyone with first-hand knowledge of the reporting process.

The system that generates the reports was developed in the mid-1980s as far as I know.

Here is a sample of the barcode in question. There are no alphanumeric fields printed on the report adjacent to the barcode, so I have not been able to do a character-by-character analysis of the encoding so far. I suspect it is Code 39, but I would like to be more confident before proceeding.

original barcode image

Edit

This is an image of my attempt to manually decode using the Code 39 tables.

decoded image

Was it helpful?

Solution

I just printed and scanned it with an MC9090 and it decodes as a CODE 3 OF 9 with a value of 41031300161002121925.

OTHER TIPS

The easiest thing to do is just scan it. If you can't, ask the programmers on the IBM side to look at the DDS for the report. The bar code name will be in there. If someone did things The Hard Way and embedded printer codes within the program, consider that you don't need to generate the exact same bar code - you only need to generate one the scanners can read. Code 3 of 9 is wildly popular. Have your app generate a sample and then have the scanner try to read it.

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