I'm revising the DOS NOISE.SYS driver currently. In writing the documentation I am discussing the advantages of such a driver (part of the logic behind writing it). Mainly, a hardware (and to some extent) operating system independent means is needed for generating random numbers. It seems to me that a device driver (at least for DOS, Unix and maybe Amiga or Atari) is the best way to do this. If one has special chips or diodes for generating randomness, a device driver which reads from them can be used. If one lacks such equipment, something like NOISE.SYS or random.c for Linux, or Noiz (which I have not yet look at) can be used. Even then, random.c defines two devices, random (which only returns as many bits as there are fresh bits in the entropy pool) and urandom (which keeps hashing the bits and will return as many as requested.) NOISE.SYS defines only random, which behaves more like urandom above. If there is a standard, it will make it easier to use special hardware since software which reads from a random device can access it. Perhaps a kind of standard should be discussed and created so that cross-platform development is made much easier, and so that features and capabilities can be worked out. Does anybody else see a need for this? --Rob