*access
Random Access to Files

To perform random access reads and writes to a file, use FINDUPDATE to open
the file, NOTE and POINT to manipulate the file position pointer, and
READWORDS and WRITEWORDS to transfer data.
*number
**
There is no BLIB procedure for creating random numbers.
There is a ring service (called RANDOM) running on DNS which will create random
numbers using SA's specialized hardware. It returns 16, 32, 48 or 64 bit
random numbers upon request. A procedure which may be included in BCPL programs
is available in :G.BCPL.RANDOM; see HELP SOURCELIB RANDOM.
Documentation on the interface can be found in the documentation on
Dynamic Nameserver in the documentation folder or documentation drawer.

Random numbers are generated bit-by-bit, one bit per millisecond. Thus the
service is not really suited to generating large numbers of random bits for
simulations. Anybody with such use in mind should generate the bits in advance,
placing them into a file, for later yse,

A statistical analysis of the randomness of the result will be forthcoming.


