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Comment by bombcar

9 hours ago

My favorite is the Doom random number generator, which is just a list of “random” numbers that it cycles through and if you know how to use it, you can do things like concentrate BFG attacks.

EverQuest also used pre-generated numbers. The randomness was derived from the large number of players using the same list.

  • That sounds like a pretty strong source of true randomness, frankly.

    (It's then filtered through the list, so the list needs to have good pseudorandomness properties anyway, but still.)

Reminds me of a "Dice" electronics kit I assembled when I was a kid. It just used some standard sequential counter ICs run at very high rate. Pressing the "roll" button would just stop the counter!