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From: ji@corto.inria.fr (John Ioannidis - Altair)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards,misc.misc
Subject: Re: ISBN
Message-ID: <1227@inria.UUCP>
Date: 31 Jan 89 15:04:14 GMT
References: <18244@adm.BRL.MIL> <884@amethyst.ma.arizona.edu>
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In article <884@amethyst.ma.arizona.edu> rsm@amethyst.ma.arizona.edu (Robert Maier) writes:
>with a weighted mod 11 checksum.  (The mysterious "X" in the checksum
>field, which one occasionally encounters, means 11.)

I know I'm nitpicking, but X means 10, not 11. (It's base ELEVEN, how can
you have a DIGIT for ELEVEN? And what would have happened to the digit
for TEN anyway?) Aren't we unix-wizards supposed to be able to do 
base-N arithmetic, forall N? :-)

By the way, isn't X a great choice for a digit for TEN? after all, 
that's what the roman numeral X stands for!!!!

I guess this discussion no longer belongs to comp.unix.wizards!

/ji

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In-Real-Life: John Ioannidis
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