[Blindapple] Slightly OT - shuffling routine

[Tony Baechler]

Hi.  You'll probably get many responses on this but here is my 
experience.  The PC is very bad at random numbers.  Usually people use the 
timer as a seed but that isn't really random.  The Apple was much better 
about that.  Second, I don't think this can be done in GW-BASIC.  I know 
you are using different types of BASIC now so probably one of those would 
work, but then you either get into direct screen writes or you have to make 
your game self-voicing under Windows.  I have a limited knowledge of Pascal 
but I'm reasonably sure that Pascal would do this.  There are free 
implementations available including a GNU version.

I'll give you a word of warning, also from experience.  Don't try using a 
sound card under BASIC in DOS.  Every card is different and it will 
probably crash Windows.  If you're using Visual BASIC, you won't have to 
worry about it but again you've just limited yourself to Windows only that 
way.  You should contact Jim Kitchen about this.  He has written many games 
for DOS and Windows and would probably be happy to help.  Feel free to 
write me off list if you want me to test your game or if you have other 
questions.