Talk:Randomness

== Moved from Randomness Chapter on 6/16/2011 ==

An important feature of computing is the opposite of randomness, regularity. Computer chips differ greatly from the outer world in their orderliness. Unlike our beaches or the bumpy landmasses with weather on which we build our houses, the world inside chips is meticulously fabricated, symmetrical, isolated and predictable. In fact, its basis is one massive crystal grown from purified silicon. It is so perfect that it is difficult to create unanticipated behavior.

As randomness in the home computer market transitioned from being a mere source of artificial surprise into practical security applications, computer chips were designed with modules designed to encourage random amounts of heat energy to influence their silicon junctions to hasten the creation of unpredictable data. To those who believe all security is security through obscurity, this is part of the essence of encryption - the production of obscurata.

Patterns in these data are way behind the abilities of humans to predict in our heads, and are even difficult for many computers to suss out.

* How the number is actually generated

But normally, digital orderliness is the rule. It is at least true for the chip (MOS6510) running the Commodore 64’s BASIC interpreter, as well as the chip running the original BASIC interpreter at Dartmouth. The next section will talk about the harnessing of randomness.

Reliability of the randomness. Point out that pseudo-randomness is not bad or inferior.

Although random numbers seem to against the concept of predictability, it turns out it is difficult to generate numbers that are extremely predictable.

The original BASIC manual shows that Dartmouth Basic (the first BASIC), had a similar specification for the RND(x) function. It generated a single stream of pseudorandom numbers. Interestingly, it recommends throwing away the first "115" or so numbers. (reference: BASIC_Oct64.pdf, page 45 of PDF, page -39- of original document)

* Develop three or four one-liners

* User/programmer side

* How it could be used to teach someone randomness/probability

* Prg in User guide demo of biasing randomness

Above, it was suggested to the reader to try out the program

<blockquote>

10 PRINT CHR$(205.9+RND(1));: GOTO 10

</blockquote>

Structurally, it's identical to 10 PRINT. Internally, one number has changed. Changing the bias makes the program more likely to print out / than \. This disrupts the subtle equilibrium needed to produce a convincing maze output.

This lesson was not documented here first. It is from the Commodore 64 User's Guide, a spiral-bound volume the size of a paperback which came with every store-bought Commodore 64. It gives try-as-you-go examples which teach the reader how to use the Commodore 64, with ample space devoted to BASIC programming. This is especially significant, considering that Commodore, a tightly-run company provided such thorough documentation, when minimal resources were dedicated toward the improvement of BASIC from previous version.