I had the same reaction as you had, but apparently, OP is correct: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_1 though you are ri

I had the same reaction as you had, but apparently, OP is correct: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_1 though you are right that it's not the same as base N, N>1. Also, Wikipedia uses |||| to represent 4 instead of 0000. It makes more sense.