Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site utai.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcsrgv!utai!dudek From: dudek@utai.UUCP (Gregory Dudek) Newsgroups: ont.micro Subject: Re: flame about random numbers Message-ID: <336@utai.UUCP> Date: Fri, 4-Jan-85 15:56:32 EST Article-I.D.: utai.336 Posted: Fri Jan 4 15:56:32 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 4-Jan-85 16:41:59 EST References: <2151@utcsstat.UUCP> Reply-To: dudek@utai.UUCP (Gregory Dudek) Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto Lines: 9 Summary: With respect to your criticism of the random numbers generated by the Apple II, are you aware that the numbers are dependent on (cycled by) the delays before each character of input is recieved. i.e. while the machine is busy waiting for keyboard input, it increments a counter used in random number generation. Consequently, unless your tests on the generators accounted for this, I don't think the results are really all that valid in many contexts (especially in the context of games -- which you referred to). Greg Dudek.