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From: arthur@Smallworld.co.uk (Arthur Chance)
Newsgroups: comp.arch.arithmetic

Subject: Re: Psuedo Random Numbers
Date: 09 Oct 1995 09:41:57 GMT
Organization: Smallworldwide
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References: <44vm6r$1q5@bug.rahul.net> 
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In-reply-to: hrubin@b.stat.purdue.edu's message of 8 Oct 1995 13:05:24 -0500

In article <4593t4$2nm0@b.stat.purdue.edu> hrubin@b.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubi
n) writes:
> The period is essentially unimprtant.  A Tausworthe generator like
> x[n] = x[n-460] + x[n-607] has period 2^(s-1)*(2^607 -1), where s
> is the word length; this is in integer arithmetic.  This class of
> procedures are now known to have drawbacks.

Could you explain that last sentence? I tend to use that style of RNG
as a convenient and easily programmed workhorse, so if there are
problems with it, I'd like to be aware of them.

-- 
What if there were no hypothetical questions?