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Retrocomputing

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How was early randomness generated?

Many programs make use of randomness, from BASIC guess-the-number games to encryption key generators. This randomness could have been generated in many, many different ways: hardware, software, software seeded by hardware...

What techniques were used to generate randomness in early computers, and were cryptographically secure sources of randomness commonly used?

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    Interestingly, I don't think AppleSoft uses this seed. Commented Feb 7, 2017 at 20:56
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    @NickWestgate: not directly, but it was common to peek the value out and use it to seed the RNG. As noted, this only works if you've waited for a keypress with the ROM function. For example, if you boot into Starship Commander directly from power-up, it will always "randomly" generate the same configuration. Commented Feb 8, 2017 at 18:08
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    You can use the same basic technique in any situation you are accepting user input, at least to augment other methods. Commented Feb 14, 2021 at 17:12