Mark K Sullivan <PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU> wrote:

> > Does this clear things up, or do you still disagree with me?
>
> It does indeed!

    Good... Sorry for the lack of clarity in my first message.

> Does it make sense to you to use on-going asynchronous events to
> generate future numbers?  If you only seed the generator once, then,
> no matter what value you start with, each new pseudo-randmo number
> has a fixed one-to-one correspondence with the previous one.

    True, but that's why you're using a pseudo-random number
    generator.  If the generator's good, the future numbers will be
    as random (by whatever criteria you use... flat spectral
    distribution, etc.) as if each number were generated by its own
    asynchronous physical process.

> The importance of this property of course dependes on the
> application.

    Yes.  In many applications, of course, the repeatability of a
    singly-seeded "random" sequence is actually an asset, especially
    for testing purposes.

> Either way, I think the original question is answered.

    Agreed, but this conversation has been interesting.

    -Andy

Andrew Warren - fastfwd@ix.netcom.com
Fast Forward Engineering, Vista, California
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/2499