Random Number seeds, was RE: First computer with real-time clock?

On Mon, 2 Aug 2004, Paul Koning wrote: And just why would that be a bad idea? Remember this was back some years - your glib "these days" doesn't apply to 'them days'... in the 60's and 70's it was not trivial to develop 'real' random numbers, so various means were used to sample a physical source or 'randomness'. I have an audio whit noise generator (Grayson Stadler) that uses a 6CB4 tube with a small bar magnet in proximity to the envelope - this exacerbates the transit noise of the tube and produses a very nice 5 Htz to about 50 kHtz stream of chaos. For many years, going back into the late 40s', microwave noise sources (for testing and calibration) were made with a 2-foot flourescent lamp mounted transversly at an acute angle through a section of waveguide - when the microwaves passed thru the excited mercury vapor, the resultant harmonics went into the gigahertz range... Sheeshe! Kids nowadays! Why when *I* was your age,,, Cheers John