+ooga booga Posted October 9, 2002 Share Posted October 9, 2002 I submitted a cache this afternoon and was surprised to see it was assigned the waypoint GC9992. http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=39314 Does this mean that all of the GCxxxx waypoints have been exhausted? If so, what's next? (It looks like GC9999 is probably sitting somewhere in the pipe waiting to be approved - the highest number I could find was GC9995, http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=39317) Quote Link to comment
umc Posted October 9, 2002 Share Posted October 9, 2002 How about 10000? ______________________________________________________________________________________ Confused New Owner Of a Garmin GPS V Received on 10-03-02 Quote Link to comment
+Centaur Posted October 9, 2002 Share Posted October 9, 2002 No, The waypoint number is counting in HEX. that is: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F So no... it has to get to 65535 (base 10) or CGFFFF (base 16 or HEX) before it rolls over, and i think things will get tweeked by then. Quote Link to comment
+LongDogs Posted October 9, 2002 Share Posted October 9, 2002 GC9999 is about 60% of the way through the possible numbers. Quote Link to comment
+mtn-man Posted October 9, 2002 Share Posted October 9, 2002 All you have to do is take the "C" out and continue onward... Gxxxxx Quote Link to comment
+Jamie Z Posted October 9, 2002 Share Posted October 9, 2002 No.. we've decided that there is only room for about 50,000 caches before we reach a saturation point, so after that, submissions will no longer be accepted. Jamie Quote Link to comment
azog Posted October 10, 2002 Share Posted October 10, 2002 It's hex. The next series should be GCAxxx ---------- Do not answer a fool according to his folly, lest you be also be like him. Quote Link to comment
k2dave Posted October 10, 2002 Share Posted October 10, 2002 Jamie Zthat was my suggestion to the town on stop signs there should only be so many of them. When someone wants a new one they must find one that can be taken down first. I like to call it the (proposed) law of conservation of stop signs. as for the caches after gcffff - there will still be plenty of gps's that will only accept the 6 digits when we run out. I like the idea of dropping the c. ----(sig line)---> Did you ever do any trail maintainence? - if so you will know that all but the most worn trails need continuous maintenance to prevent mother nature from reclaiming it. herd paths are quickly reclaimed - k2dave Quote Link to comment
+apersson850 Posted October 10, 2002 Share Posted October 10, 2002 What says that the codes couldn't be alphanumeric? Saying that after GCffff comes GCfffg and so on, meaning that we can go on until GCzzzz. If we go back and reuse the numbers that have been passed, i.e. not only GC0001 to GC000f, but all the way to GC000z, then we have 1697615, instead of 65535 possible combinations. Assuming GC0000 isn't used. This gives one cache for every 303 km^2, oceans included. Since about 70% is water, there'll be one cache for less than every 100 km^2. Considering then how much of the earth that isn't too nice to walk on (desert, mountains, ice), it'll probably be enough. Besides, who needs more than 640 K RAM in a personal computer, to quote mr Gates. Anders Quote Link to comment
BassoonPilot Posted October 10, 2002 Share Posted October 10, 2002 quote:Originally posted by k2dave:... as for the caches after gcffff - there will still be plenty of gps's that will only accept the 6 digits when we run out. Elias mentioned in another thread recently that when the current series of numbers runs out, the prefix would be changed to "GD" and the sequence would start again from the beginning. A few other possibilites were also mentioned. Our earliest GPS (a Magellan 300) only accepted 4 numbers/letters. When we started geocaching, we liked using names better than waypoint designations, so we entered the first or shortest descriptive word of a cache name ... or the first letter of each word. When we purchased the Maggie back in '99, we considered that 4th place a real luxury, because most navaids use only a 3 place identifier. Quote Link to comment
+trippy1976 Posted October 10, 2002 Share Posted October 10, 2002 I'm pretty sure that the way to determine the total possible combinations that a string has is: (number of items)^(possible values) Which makes the total possible combinations of GC strings using the current setup (4 spaces after GC) ^ (10 digits + 6 alphas) 4^16 = 4,294,967,296 We have a ways to go -------- trippy1976 Quote Link to comment
+trippy1976 Posted October 10, 2002 Share Posted October 10, 2002 I'm pretty sure that the way to determine the total possible combinations that a string has is: (number of items)^(possible values) Which makes the total possible combinations of GC strings using the current setup (4 spaces after GC) ^ (10 digits + 6 alphas) 4^16 = 4,294,967,296 We have a ways to go -------- trippy1976 Quote Link to comment
+trippy1976 Posted October 10, 2002 Share Posted October 10, 2002 If the whole alphabet were in use, (by that forumula) you'd have 4^26 = 4,722,366,482,869,645,213,696 And even if only numbers were being used, we'd have 4^10 = 1,048,576 Which is still a pretty large number. -------- trippy1976 Quote Link to comment
+trippy1976 Posted October 10, 2002 Share Posted October 10, 2002 Each cache gets an ID number assigned. Looking on the home page, the most recent ID listed under "Newest caches" is 39362. I'd bet this is an auto-incrementing number. So we're waaay off from rolling over. -------- trippy1976 Quote Link to comment
+Jamie Z Posted October 10, 2002 Share Posted October 10, 2002 Trippy, You have your math wrong. It's 16^4, not 4^16. Look at it this way, we use a base ten system in everyday use... 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9. If you can only use two digits, you have 10^2 combinations, or 100 (0-99). Not 2^10 combinations which is 1024 and equivilant to an 8-bit binary number. Your suggestion that "even if only numbers were being used, we'd have 4^10 = 1,048,576" doesn't make sense. Four digits of base 10 is clearly 10,000, not 1,048,576. In fact, the idea is kind of silly, and I'm sure you'll laugh. Jamie (edit: corrected my own math error, oops) [This message was edited by Jamie Z on October 10, 2002 at 12:23 PM.] Quote Link to comment
+georgeandmary Posted October 10, 2002 Share Posted October 10, 2002 quote:Originally posted by trippy1976:I'm pretty sure that the way to determine the total possible combinations that a string has is: (number of items)^(possible values) Which makes the total possible combinations of GC strings using the current setup (4 spaces after GC) ^ (10 digits + 6 alphas) 4^16 = 4,294,967,296 We have a ways to go -------- http://www.wunderware.com/mike/geocaching/ http://www.mi-geocaching.org/ You have it backwards. As an example, if you had only one space and 16 digits. Your version would put that at 1^16... which is 1. It should be 16^1 which is 16.. 2 places 16^2 =256, so 4 places is 16^4 which is 65536. george Pedal until your legs cramp up and then pedal some more. Quote Link to comment
+georgeandmary Posted October 10, 2002 Share Posted October 10, 2002 quote:Originally posted by trippy1976:I'm pretty sure that the way to determine the total possible combinations that a string has is: (number of items)^(possible values) Which makes the total possible combinations of GC strings using the current setup (4 spaces after GC) ^ (10 digits + 6 alphas) 4^16 = 4,294,967,296 We have a ways to go -------- http://www.wunderware.com/mike/geocaching/ http://www.mi-geocaching.org/ You have it backwards. As an example, if you had only one space and 16 digits. Your version would put that at 1^16... which is 1. It should be 16^1 which is 16.. 2 places 16^2 =256, so 4 places is 16^4 which is 65536. george Pedal until your legs cramp up and then pedal some more. Quote Link to comment
+trippy1976 Posted October 10, 2002 Share Posted October 10, 2002 Gah. I'm so dyslexic sometimes. You're right, if you had four digits of base 10, the combination would be 9999+1 = 10,000 = 10^4 (with 0000 as a combination) So it's 16^4 = 65536 Chagrined, but now you know why I download my coordinates to my GPS - got tired of transposing the numbers -------- trippy1976 Quote Link to comment
+trippy1976 Posted October 10, 2002 Share Posted October 10, 2002 Gah. I'm so dyslexic sometimes. You're right, if you had four digits of base 10, the combination would be 9999+1 = 10,000 = 10^4 (with 0000 as a combination) So it's 16^4 = 65536 Chagrined, but now you know why I download my coordinates to my GPS - got tired of transposing the numbers -------- trippy1976 Quote Link to comment
+Byron & Anne Posted October 10, 2002 Share Posted October 10, 2002 quote:Originally posted by Anders:What says that the codes couldn't be alphanumeric? Saying that after GCffff comes GCfffg and so on, meaning that we can go on until GCzzzz. If we go back and reuse the numbers that have been passed, i.e. not only GC0001 to GC000f, but all the way to GC000z, then we have 1697615, instead of 65535 possible combinations. Assuming GC0000 isn't used. This gives one cache for every 303 km^2, oceans included. Since about 70% is water, there'll be one cache for less than every 100 km^2. Considering then how much of the earth that isn't too nice to walk on (desert, mountains, ice), it'll probably be enough. Besides, who needs more than 640 K RAM in a personal computer, to quote mr Gates. Anders There's a very good reason NOT to use the whole alphabet. Computer languages often use the base 16 (0 through F), and convertions between base 10 (0 through 9) are accomplished easily. If you look at the URL for a given cach page (http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=19140) The ID number 19140 = 4AC4. Now look at that cache page you you'll see that the way point is GC4AC4. The simplest way to go beyon FFFF is to add another digit, but that's still a ways off. Byron Quote Link to comment
+cachew nut Posted October 10, 2002 Share Posted October 10, 2002 quote:Originally posted by Jamie Z: Not 2^10 combinations which is 1024 and equivilant to an 8-bit binary number. I believe you meant a 10 bit binary number rather than 8 bit binary number. You only have 256 combinations with 8 bits. Quote Link to comment
+Freelens&Mosie Posted October 11, 2002 Share Posted October 11, 2002 I assume that the GC stands for GeoCaching. The question that will be posed by new people seeing GCAxxx will be WTF does the A stand for? Or, why didn't you start at 0 instead of GBFFFF?? You can't be lost if you don't care where you are. [This message was edited by Freelens & Mosie on October 11, 2002 at 03:03 AM.] Quote Link to comment
+Jamie Z Posted October 11, 2002 Share Posted October 11, 2002 quote:Originally posted by cachew nut:I believe you meant a 10 bit binary number rather than 8 bit binary number. You only have 256 combinations with 8 bits. Of course... See I was in a hurry to beat George, and I missed that part. Jamie Quote Link to comment
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