[time-nuts] are any time-nuts also random-nuts?

[Bob Camp]

Hi

The last time I checked in any depth the schematics for the SIGTOT master tape generator were "missing". The best speculation I have seen is that it was indeed an analog (electron multiplier photodiode) based setup. Of course that's not provable any more ...

It is indeed a leap from that gear to *assume* it ever got hooked to a computer.

Bob 

On Dec 23, 2009, at 2:26 PM, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:

> In message <0F83896E292444AFA019E8589F9C7700 at vectron.com>, "Bob Camp" writes:
>> Hi
>> 
>> If you do a Google for SIGTOT you head off to another bunch of people who
>> hook RNG's up to various things. My *guess* is that they likely hooked one
>> up to a computer back in the 1940's...
> 
> Interestingly, this does not seem to be the case.  It was thought about
> at various points, but everybody reached the same conclusion: too slow,
> and went with PRNG instead.
> 
>> As far as I know, the first RNG to be connected to a computer was this
>> one:
>> 	http://phk.freebsd.dk/misc/DASK_rng.pdf
> 
> The danes reached the same conclusion, but not until after they actually
> built their device...
> 
> Poul-Henning
> 
> -- 
> Poul-Henning Kamp       | UNIX since Zilog Zeus 3.20
> phk at FreeBSD.ORG         | TCP/IP since RFC 956
> FreeBSD committer       | BSD since 4.3-tahoe    
> Never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by incompetence.
> 
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