Random Number seeds, was RE: First computer with real-time clock?

From: William Donzelli <aw288_at_osfn.org>
Date: Mon Aug 2 14:21:02 2004

> And just why would that be a bad idea? Remember this was back some
> years - your glib "these days" doesn't apply to 'them days'... in the
> 60's and 70's it was not trivial to develop 'real' random numbers, so
> various means were used to sample a physical source or 'randomness'. I
> have an audio whit noise generator (Grayson Stadler) that uses a 6CB4 tube
> with a small bar magnet in proximity to the envelope - this exacerbates
> the transit noise of the tube and produses a very nice 5 Htz to about 50
> kHtz stream of chaos.

This is pretty standard stuff in the military ECM world (I think the
O-202/ALA-7 pulse generator works the same way, early B-52 era stuff). In
fact, some relatively normal tubes were made for this trick.

I found my box of phototube noise generators, pulled out of WW2
jammers. Cheap. Email if interested.

William Donzelli
aw288_at_osfn.org
Received on Mon Aug 02 2004 - 14:21:02 BST