Rem Program creates dots using random x and y coordinates
Rem
Rem To eliminate pattern, make sure the number of Rnd variables in
Rem the loop are not a power of 2.
Rem -------
Do
Call Initialize
Call DrawDots
Loop
End
Sub Initialize
_Title "Random Number Distribution"
Screen _NewImage(840, 480, 12)
Cls
End Sub
Sub DrawDots
Randomize Timer
Color 9
Print "First random number this cycle"; Rnd
Do
x = Rnd * 840
y = Rnd * 480
c = 1 + Int(Rnd * 15)
a4 = Rnd
a5 = Rnd
a6 = Rnd
a7 = Rnd
a8 = Rnd
a9 = Rnd
a10 = Rnd
a11 = Rnd
a12 = Rnd
a13 = Rnd
a14 = Rnd
a15 = Rnd
a16 = Rnd
PSet (x, y), c
_Delay .005
If InKey$ = Chr$(27) Then Exit Do
Loop
Cls
Locate 15, 35
Input "Start with new seed (y/n)"; cont$
If cont$ = "n" Then End
End Sub
@Statsman1
I do not know if it is of use to you but...
I use QB64 code to measure time intervals down to 100 nano seconds (rather than TIMER)
Thank you, Steve, for the insight here. I have removed the second RANDOMIZE and only triggering one RANDOMIZE (TIMER) at the beginning of the program. The goal of that 100-loop accumulation was simply to introduce a random delay on each sweep of the code that determines movement of the horses, because I am consistently getting identical times, which is really what I am asking about.
I agree 100 percent that the mean of a series of random numbers between 0 and .999999 approaches .5, and that loop wasn’t doing much, except that probably WASN’T exactly .5, and because _DELAY can use 1/1000ths, it should have been enough to prevent the identical times (to the 1/100000th) happening. It wasn’t.
I am not the most optimized coder, no question about that, but when I time events using TIMER, with that precision, I still cannot figure out how I am getting identical times all the way to the 1/100000th of a second. That should be, to my mind, quite impossible….or, since anything is possible, FAR less frequent.
There is too much code to paste here, but the gist of it is….
BEGIN
START RACE
StartTime = TIMER
Race is 1,440 pixels long
Begin Loop
Random numbers between 1 and 3 determine how many pixels forward each horse moves
All 6 horses move, in random order
All horses move forward
Eventually, each horse has moved 1,440 pixels (enough passes of 1, 2 or 3 have happened to add up to 1,440)
First horse crosses finish line
FirstTime = TIMER
FirstTime = FirstFinish - StartTime
Second horse crosses finish line
SecondFinish = TIMER
SecondTime = SecondFinish - TIMER
.
.
.
Sixth horse crosses finish line
SixthFinish = TIMER
SixthTime = SixthFinish - StartTime
End of loop
Race is done - display results
END
Sometimes, there are EXACT ties in a race. Dead heats happen in horse races, I have no issue with that, though, again, a tie to the 1/100000th of a second seems kind of wildly unlikely.
But run a few of these, and I get some identical times, all the way down to the 1/100000 of a second (I posted a list of 10 races x 6 times). The 4th place finisher in race #6 will have the identical time to the 2nd place finisher in race #3, for example. Again, to the 1/100000th of a second. That just should NOT happen.
I tried this. If I run a race where all horses move 3 pixels at a time, all 6 finish at basically the same time, but the first horse to move that last cycle wins by 2/100th of a second. Makes sense, there is processing time being used. However, all the other 5 horses have the exact same time down to the 5th decimal place. Something is strange about this type of thing.