Jerome Fine replies: Maybe the readers of this list don't realize it (it you looked closely it would be obvious), the zip/postal code of each country is basically different. In the US: a 5 digit number of which the first 2 digits identify the state (some states have more than 1 combination of the 100 possibilities of 00 -> 99) In Canada: ANA NAN (alpha/numeric/alpha[space]numeric/alpha/numeric) with the first A the province identifier (some provinces and territories have more than 1 letter of the 26 possibilities) In the UK: Possibly AAA NNN (I don't really know) Some of the details may be (probably are) incorrect, but overall that is the system. Consequently, just the zip/postal code is enough to identify the Country - State/Province/???? - City/Town/Villiage Any additional location information is for the reader. For example, my postal code of M2R 3G3 is for a group of 2 residential homes of which mine is 1 of them - a fairly explicit location. So, if you are willing to give your zip/postal code, in effect that is an almost exact location of, at the most, a few hundred buildings and often only a few dozen. My example is because my street is so short, it has only 7 homes and on my side of the street (the postal code is specific as to which side of the street) there are only 2 houses. Some streets are many blocks long and could include a few hundred homes. The streets that are many miles long would have many postal codes. So if you don't want anyone to know where you live, don't include your zip/postal code, just your country. Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine

If you add the 4 digit extension, you might get a very fine grain. Like Canada Germany: NNNNN France: NNNNN Russia: NNN NNN (Space is optional) etc... ZIP without the country is worthles - for example, 90210 might be California, but it is also an area near Nuremberg, Germany :) Again depending on the country - for example my ZIP in the old German system 8(000) Munich 83 was an area with of some 150,000 people living inside - End even the new 81541 represents still more than 60,000 people... Wasn't the basic idea to get knowledge of people near you ? In fact, a lot of interesting people might live right next door. For a usefull system a Country identyfier and the ZIP code should be used, like US-90210 or DE-81541 or CA-M2R3G3 (ISO 2 Char Country identifyer plus up to 9 char for ZIP - there is _no_ ZIP code in the world with more than 9 digits). And for the state/province thing - that's not used outside US/CA and defacto redundant information, since the ZIP code already includes this - everybody knows the location of (at least) the first two or 3 digits within his country. Servus Hans -- Stimm gegen SPAM: http://www.politik-digital.de/spam/de/ Vote against SPAM: http://www.politik-digital.de/spam/en/ Votez contre le SPAM: http://www.politik-digital.de/spam/fr/ Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut HRK

On Wed, 31 Mar 1999, Jerome Fine wrote: Maybe in your neck of the woods. Where I live a ZIP code can represent an entire town of 60,000+ people (like mine for instance). I think the rescue list on Bill Yakowenko's site (don't have the URL handy) can serve the purpose of knowing where generally other fellow collectors are located. Aside from privacy concerns, its a swell idea. But I guess it would be on a voluntary basis. I'm in the San Francisco Bay Area in California. Anyone's welcome to come visit anytime. Just send me an e-mail a couple days in advance. Sellam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Don't rub the lamp if you don't want the genie to come out. Coming in 1999: Vintage Computer Festival 3.0 See http://www.vintage.org/vcf for details! [Last web site update: 02/15/99]