----- Forwarded message from jcm -----

>From jcm Thu May 27 16:09:17 1999
Subject: Better solution to Random>>initializa
To: squeak at cs.uiuc.edu (Squeak mailing list)
Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 16:09:17 +0200 (METDST)
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The problem with the initialization of a Random is in the statement:

	seed := Time millisecondClockValue * self hash.

which has a problem when self hash evaluates to zero.  The solution I
propose is to modify that line:

    initialize
	" Set a reasonable Park-Miller starting seed "
	seed := Time millisecondClockValue * (self hash + 1).

	a := 16r000041A7 asFloat.    " magic constant =      16807 "
	m := 16r7FFFFFFF asFloat.    " magic constant = 2147483647 "
	q := (m quo: a) asFloat.
	r  := (m \\ a) asFloat.

Greetings, Juan.

PS: I have translated to Squeak the C code to generate random numbers
with a normal distribution published in "Numerical Recipes in C", second
edition, and implemented the class NormalRandom.  Is it legal to publish 
such code?

----- End of forwarded message from jcm -----