Author: W. Siegel, K. Whittle and J. Siegel, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada

This program provides a patch to correct the problem with FOCAL's random number generator. This routine was an algorithm developed by Green, Smith and Klem (1959) which has several advantages for use with minicomputers. First, unlike most such generators, it uses an addative rather than a multiplicative process; addition is much faster than multiplication with most machines. Second, the routine is relatively short and third, it has been documented and tested and its characteristics are known. A listing for the patch for FOCAL-12 is provided, but other versions of FOCAL may be modified with similar changes. Three short general programs are included which type out sequences of random integers.

Minimum Hardware: PDP-8 or PDP-12

Other Programs Needed: FOCAL, FOCAL-12

Source Language: Assembly Language

Catalog: July 1974