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From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: random number generator in hardware
Message-ID: <7334@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 21-Nov-86 13:51:39 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.7334
Posted: Fri Nov 21 13:51:39 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 21-Nov-86 13:51:39 EST
References: <317@zuring.mcvax.UUCP> <267@bath63.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 12

> > My understanding is that the problem is avoiding bias in the resulting
> > numbers...
> 
> How about taking the exclusive-or of several such random bit generators?
> This converges exponentially toward probability 1/2 as the number of
> bits xor'ed increases.

Only if the generators drift independently, which in general they won't:
things like temperature and aging effects will be similar for all.
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry