Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!nems!mimsy!mojo!russotto
From: russotto@eng.umd.edu (Matthew T. Russotto)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Random number Generator wanted.
Message-ID: <1990Jul6.182611.6371@eng.umd.edu>
Date: 6 Jul 90 18:26:11 GMT
References: <1990Jun29.020739.9146@Neon.Stanford.EDU> <1990Jun30.170949.1426@Neon.Stanford.EDU> <8999@goofy.Apple.COM>
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Organization: College of Engineering, Maryversity of Uniland, College Park
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In article <8999@goofy.Apple.COM> alexr@ucscb.ucsc.edu (Alexander M. Rosenberg) writes:
>In article <1990Jun30.170949.1426@Neon.Stanford.EDU> 
>kaufman@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Marc T. Kaufman) writes:
>> I thank Sak for this info.  I am not sure just which Macs this applies 
>to --
>> probably the ci and fx, certainly not the SE.  Can someone from Apple 
>tell us
>> when the algorithm changed, and is it part of a system patch so all Macs 
>can
>> benefit from it?
>> 
>> Marc Kaufman (kaufman@Neon.stanford.edu)
>
>Sak is incorrect. While he may note that the algorithm is the same (I'm 
>not sure), it is definately not probable for him to have matched up 10000 
>numbers.
>
>Apple's random number generator uses the tick count as a seed upon each 
>InitGraf (I may be wrong here, but I'm sure that it is time derived.) I do 
>know that the mouse driver has always kept track of the time at which a 
>click occurs, and takes the difference in time between that click and the 
>previous one, and adds this number to the current randSeed. This is where 
>an additional level of randomness is provided. (Humans tend to be more 
>"random" than computers do, eh?)

No.  At least according to inside mac.  The RandSeed is one.

--
Matthew T. Russotto	russotto@eng.umd.edu	russotto@wam.umd.edu
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