[PLUG-TALK] Excel Formula

[Rich Shepard]

On Tue, 23 Jan 2007, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky wrote:

> Ah, yes ... bad random number generators. As Knuth said, "Don't choose a
> random number generator at random." :) Is anyone else on this list old
> enough to remember the IBM 1130 Scientific Subroutine Package? This was a
> stripped-down version of the BioMed (BMD) statistical package. It
> contained a random number generator that would "execute" on a 16-bit
> machine. I say "execute" rather than "work" because, like all RNGs of its
> type, it has a period of two bits less than the machine word size. Which
> means its period is 2**14 or 16384!

   Yup. I used both the SSP and BMP on the IBM S/360s at the U. of Illinois
in the early-to-mid 1970s.

Rich

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