Eric wrote on Tue, 24 Apr 2007 10:00:02 -0700:

E "johnny vino" wrote:

?? I'm trying to obtain the following:
??
?? A 30 column x 1000 row table of normal distribution of
?? random item responses ranging from 1-4.
??
?? I'm not sure how to control the "Normal" output of the #
?? generator, and I can't figure out how to generate only
?? natural numbers (no decimals). I can format the numbers
?? to 0 decimal places, but the "truth" of the numberis still
?? listed as 3.1223.. which isn't a response option on my
?? tests. (that's a joke)

Sorry, I missed the word "normal". I suspect that suggestions
using NORMINV could be used to get *adequate* values even if it
is not the greatest generator for normal distributions. I'm not
an expert but I'm going to have to take a look to see if the
problem has been discussed in the statistical literature.

James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

E-mail, with obvious alterations:
not.jim.silverton.at.comcast.not