lew (05/11/82)
Looking at the C source, rand() returns an shift right of the iterated random variable so its low order digits should be fine. Try digging up the source on your system, its one line of code. The only bias to taking rand() mod a value is that the values 0 through 0x7fff mod modvalue are slightly more likely to occur than the values (0x7fff mod modvalue) plus one through modvalue minus one. In the case of an even divisor of 0x10000 ( this includes 8 ) there should be no bias at all. rand() gets blamed for all kinds of things, I think you should check this out further. Lew Mammel, Jr. - BTL Indian Hill