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???
12/20/07 08:46
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 		 #148539 - reminds me of a funny story
Responding to: ???'s previous message
At a small company called Fortune Coin (later Sircoma then IGT) in Las Vegas we were developing one of the the first video poker games. The engineer used a noisy 2N3904 transistor as a random noise / number / generator. We had girls testing the transistors one by one and marking the noisy ones with pink nail polish.

The lab trials went perfect - random cards - no problems.

We put a couple out on trial at a local casino and the first night a problem cropped up that we could not figure out. The screen would display 5 ace of spades.

It turned out to be a flickering flourescent lamp in the ceiling causing the random number generator to lock up. The noisy transistor approach was abandoned and we hired a math professor from the local college to come up with a RNG that could be implemented using 8031 assembly language.

List of 53 messages in thread
TopicAuthorDate
let's discuss random numbers            01/01/70 00:00      
   Radomness            01/01/70 00:00      
   chi squared....            01/01/70 00:00      
      51 related            01/01/70 00:00      
   how random is "Random"?            01/01/70 00:00      
      Quantifying randomness            01/01/70 00:00      
   Use one table in the memory            01/01/70 00:00      
   no 'mathematical solution can do that            01/01/70 00:00      
      I like your response            01/01/70 00:00      
   ADC and noise            01/01/70 00:00      
      reminds me of a funny story            01/01/70 00:00      
         Simple local shielding would have helped            01/01/70 00:00      
         Bad design!            01/01/70 00:00      
   The counter and button seems perfect to me            01/01/70 00:00      
   Not sure why people have problems with RNG            01/01/70 00:00      
      what I got out of all of this            01/01/70 00:00      
         Not quite?            01/01/70 00:00      
            And if there isn't a button?            01/01/70 00:00      
         no            01/01/70 00:00      
         More Not Quite            01/01/70 00:00      
            chi square isn't enough            01/01/70 00:00      
               Quantified randomness            01/01/70 00:00      
      By Definition            01/01/70 00:00      
      RNG schemes can be malicious!            01/01/70 00:00      
   pseudo IS pseudo, not random            01/01/70 00:00      
   A really good reference            01/01/70 00:00      
   Is radioactive decay truely random?            01/01/70 00:00      
      Correction            01/01/70 00:00      
      Is anything truly random?            01/01/70 00:00      
         Chaos is...            01/01/70 00:00      
            Chaos is not random.            01/01/70 00:00      
               I didnt tell that it is random            01/01/70 00:00      
   Visual randomness test            01/01/70 00:00      
      Las Vegas            01/01/70 00:00      
      Only for an indefinite number of pixels            01/01/70 00:00      
         How about a coin toss experiment, sort of.            01/01/70 00:00      
            Set of what ?            01/01/70 00:00      
               But my point is that you can know.            01/01/70 00:00      
                  This is wrong, sorry!            01/01/70 00:00      
                     Are you even reading what I wrote?            01/01/70 00:00      
                        A random system is....            01/01/70 00:00      
                           AKA the LCE            01/01/70 00:00      
                           Random is            01/01/70 00:00      
                        Of course, I did            01/01/70 00:00      
                           Before we proceed, ...            01/01/70 00:00      
                              Randomness versus determinism            01/01/70 00:00      
                                 Applying the uncertainty principle            01/01/70 00:00      
                                    Thanks            01/01/70 00:00      
                                       You're welcome            01/01/70 00:00      
                  It is still Random            01/01/70 00:00      
            Depends            01/01/70 00:00      
   Normal distribution.            01/01/70 00:00      
   A random # generator circuit.            01/01/70 00:00      

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