Dear Bob,
It's funny to me that you were careful to add the "p" to "rng"; I had the
thought after I posted that if *ever* there were a "pseudo-"random number
generator, well, the one coded up for ATP certainly qualifies. Or should it
instead be termed something else? I'll leave it to Harlan to come up with an
appropriate acronym and description (e.g., Sublimely Hilarious Integer-based
Testcode)

I sure as heck did not intend to offend you guys; I hope you took the post
in the same spirit with which I intended it--- mainly, it's fun to drop in
and see what you folks are up to.

All the best,
Dave B

"Bob Phillips" wrote in message
...
Mr Braden,

I really must protest :-)

I never in any way abetted or endorsed the PRND in Excel, just tried to
help
the OP get the help he sought from that function.

I know about PopTools, I have even suggested it in response before.

Nice to see you here again BTW

Regards

Bob

"David J. Braden" wrote in message
...
Mike,
I'm surprised that you, Tom and Bob are abetting what is surely one of
the
worst random-number generators written, and still maintained!!! (Gentle
rib.) The ATP rng is horrible, dynamic/static issues aside. It generates
both 0's and 1's, and with alarming frequency. In relatively small
samples,
it will repeat values *a lot*. By all means, keep the OP away from the
thing (IMO). Your low-key allusion to much better solutions might be why
you got tenure and I didn't (vbg).

Another add-in to mention is Pop-tools, which has an absolutely wonderful
rng, as well as a lot of useful functions good for MC simulation.

Regards from Mtn View,
Dave Braden

"Mike Middleton" wrote in message
...
Mike -

... Also, no example on how to fill some of the options correctly? For
xample, on how to fill the parameters block, I tried different ways on
how to enter the "Value and Probability Input Range" but none worked!
<

The appropriate parameters depend on the type of distribution you
choose.

If you choose "Discrete," the parameters must be values and
probabilities
on a worksheet, as described in Help:

"Discrete
Characterized by a value and the associated probability range. The
range
must contain two columns: The left column contains values, and the
right
column contains probabilities associated with the value in that row.
The
sum of the probabilities must be 1."

If you have questions about the discrete distribution or other types of
distributions, please post specific questions.

Also, there are other ways to obtain random numbers in Excel, including
dynamic formulas using the RAND worksheet function and specialized
functions in tryout versions of Monte Carlo simulation add-ins (like my
RiskSim available at www.treeplan.com). Depending on your application,
these dynamic methods may be better than the static values produced by
the
Random Number Generation tool.

- Mike
www.mikemiddleton.com