REM Sat 22 Nov 97 22:54
REM By: mkimes@ibm.net (Mark Kimes)
REM To: William Putnam
REM
REM wp> Your "52 cards" is reminiscent of another anecdote: The case
REM wp> of the "Disassembled watch parts in a box."  How long must you
REM wp> shake to get the parts to randomly fall into perfect place
REM wp> and reassemble the watch?
REM
REM Depends -- do parts that wind up in the right place get retained?
REM Run this program, which fills a 100 part array with the number
REM corresponding to its index at random, either with (naturalselection
REM = 1) or without (naturalselection = 0) "natural selection":

    CLS
    PRINT "Fundy bopper."
    naturalselection = 1
    DIM a(100)

    SLEEP(1)

    RANDOMIZE TIMER

    z = 0

STARTOVER:
    FOR x = 1 TO 100
        IF naturalselection <> 0 AND a(x) = x THEN GOTO DONEXT
        PRINT x
TRYAGAIN:
        y = INT((RND(1) * 100) + 1)
        IF y <> x THEN z = z + 1
        IF naturalselection <> 0 AND y <> x THEN GOTO TRYAGAIN
        a(x) = y
DONEXT:
    NEXT

    FOR x = 1 TO 100
        IF a(x) <> x THEN GOTO STARTOVER
    NEXT

    PRINT
    PRINT z; "random choices required with";
    IF naturalselection = 0 THEN PRINT "out";
    PRINT " natural selection."

REM Don't bother waiting for a run with naturalselection = 0 on
REM line 5 to complete... [That's without having the program employ
REM natural selection; that would take a long, long time to run to
REM completion. - flr]

Program FundyBopper; { Original by Mark Kimes }

CONST
 NaturalSelection               :Boolean = TRUE;
 Timescale                      = 100;

VAR
 A                              :Array[1..Timescale] of Word;
 Z                              :LongInt; { This will wrap anyway }
 X,Y                            :Word;
 Done                           :Boolean;

BEGIN
 Randomize;
 Done:=FALSE;
 z:=0;

While NOT Done do
begin
 for x:=1 to Timescale do
  begin
   if NOT ((NaturalSelection) and (A[x]=x)) then
    begin
     REPEAT
      y:=Random(Timescale)+1;
      if (y<>x) then Inc(z);
     UNTIL NOT ((NaturalSelection) and (y<>x));
     A[x]:=y;
    end;
  end;
  for x:=1 to Timescale do if a[x]<>x then Break; { Optimization ... }
  if x=Timescale then Done:=TRUE; { ... Scope could be compiler-specific? }
  if z mod Timescale*1000=0 then
   WriteLn(z,' choices made.'); { Keep fundie hooked }
end;
 Write(z,' random choices required with');
 if NOT NaturalSelection then Write('out');
 WriteLn(' natural selection.');
END.