Re: Why to call it pseudorandom?

From: Erick Bryce Wong (erick_at_sfu.ca)
Date: 08/30/04 

Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 01:47:23 +0000 (UTC)

Tim Smith <reply_in_group@mouse-potato.com> wrote:
>David C Ullrich <ullrich@math.okstate.edu> wrote:
>> of course any sequence generated by an actual physical computer loops.
>
>However, you can make the period very long. Off the top of my head (so no
>one use this--random number generators are not things that should be picked
>at random!), consider this PRNG that generates 32-bit numbers:

There are processors now that have non-deterministic hardware operations
(such as measuring noise across a resistor or whatever) for the express
purpose of being sources of true randomness. They might not be 100% pure
sources (i.e. they probably don't extract a stream of totally independent,
completely unbiased bits), but I don't see how they would loop. These
would be actual physical computers, and somewhat in the mainstream (for
instance, the VIA C3 Nehemiah processor which is an x86 clone).

 -- Erick