From: "Campbell, Rolf [SKY:1U32:EXCH]" Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer,comp.os.msdos.djgpp Subject: Re: Uptime and entropy in DOS Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 13:58:07 -0500 Organization: Nortel Networks Lines: 21 Message-ID: <38A45BBF.845CE314@americasm01.nt.com> References: <38A420E4 DOT 27CA35B2 AT americasm01 DOT nt DOT com> <38A4450C DOT 31C58BC AT hns DOT com> NNTP-Posting-Host: wmerh0tk.ca.nortel.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.71 [en] (X11; I; HP-UX B.10.20 9000/785) X-Accept-Language: en To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com DJ-Gateway: from newsgroup comp.os.msdos.djgpp Reply-To: djgpp AT delorie DOT com Link Hochnadel wrote: > "Campbell, Rolf [SKY:1U32:EXCH]" wrote: > > > > Damian Yerrick wrote: > > > > > Is it possible to get the uptime of a DOS system? I need more entropy > > > than the 32 bits I get from time(NULL) to initialize a pseudorandom > > > number generator. Is there a predictable way to get at least 64 bits > > > of entropy? > Flip the bits end-to-end, then multiply both values to get 64 bits. That will only be 32-bit's of entropy in a 64-bit container. It would be just as effective to assign the upper 32-bits some constant (like 0xdeadbeef). -- (\/) Rolf Campbell (\/)