A pseudo-random number generator for the System/360

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to describe a pseudo-random number generator that uses the full capacity of the 32-bit registers of IBM SYSTEM/360 computers, and to briefly report on and document the testing of and experience with the random number generator. The generator is a particular case of the sequence of numbers x <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">i</inf> generated by the equation x <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">i+1</inf> = Ax <inf xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">i</inf> (mod p) (1) where p is a prime and A is a positive primitive root of p.