The GALTON program was designed to simulate an experiment
in mathematical probability. The idea is derived from a board
which contains several rows of staggered but equally spaced nails,
named after its inventor, Francis Galton (1822-1911). Objects
are dropped across this board and stack up in collection bins
at its bottom. The user can control the left-right probabilities
and can observe either coins or ping-pong balls in conjunction
with the board. Given the correct parameters, you can visually
see how nature produces the binomial coefficients from Pascal's
Triangle and their relation to a Gaussian bell-shaped normal curve.
The program can also simulate coin tossing experiments with biased
coins which result in skewed distributions. This program requires
some form of graphics such as CGA or EGA or VGA hardware. The
program automatically adapts to the highest graphics resolution
of the hardware it finds. There is an independent tutorial file,
GALTON.TXT, which is for first-time users. GALTON.TXT may be imported
into any word processor and/or printed on any printer.
(from galton.abs)
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