Code 39 barcodes are used to code simple text. The barcodes are consisting of wide or narrow black strips seperated by wide or narrow white spaces. Each Code 39 element contains 9 elements (5 bars and 4
spaces).
a) How many different combinations can you have for this barcode scheme? Is it enough to encode the 255 character ASCII sequence?
b) Because some barcode readers have low performance, it is suggested that the first and last strips are always wide. Now how many different outputs (codes) can you have for this scheme? Is it enough to encode the 128 character printable ASCII sequence?
c) Some barcode readers still have problem with this scheme. So it is proposed to have exactly 2 wide black strips and 1 wide whitespace in each character. However, the places for the wide strips and the wide space can vary. Now, how many different permutations can you have in this code?