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ERNIE facts
- ERNIE, Electronic Random Number Indicator Equipment, generates the winning numbers each month.
- ERNIE’s randomness is independently verified each month, NS&I cannot publish the winning numbers until it receives a certificate of randomness.
- There have been four ERNIEs since 1956, each one becoming smaller and faster as technology develops. Each ERNIE has lasted approximately 16 years.
- If ERNIE 1 was used today he would take 52 days to generate the numbers while ERNIE 4 takes just three hours.
- ERNIE used to be the size of a small bus but is now the size of a small DVD player.
- ERNIE is not a computer, he is a physical random number generator using thermal noise as the source of randomness.
- He is still based in Blackpool - the home of Premium Bonds.
- ERNIE has received birthday, Christmas and Valentine's cards, poems and even some Epsom salts, holy water and castor oil.
- ERNIE 1 was built by some of the same engineers who built Colossus, the World War 2 code-breaker.
- ERNIE 2 was specifically designed to look like one of the sets from the James Bond movie Goldfinger.
- ERNIE 4 produces 50,000 Premium Bond numbers in the time it takes to boil an egg.
- ERNIE has inspired songs by Madness and Roy Wood.
ERNIE vital statistics
ERNIE 1
- First used: June 1957
- Developed by: Post Office Research Station, Dollis Hill
- Used for: 16 years
- Fact: ERNIE was the brainchild of Tom Flowers, who also built the World War 2 code-breaker Colossus.
ERNIE 2
- First used: February 1973
- Developed by: Plessey, Poole
- Used for: 15 years
- Fact: ERNIE 2 was specifically designed to look like one of the sets from the James Bond movie ‘Goldfinger’.
ERNIE 3
- First used: September 1988
- Developed by: LogicaCMG
- Used for: 16 years
- Fact: ERNIE 3 had to be phased out when 11-digit bonds were introduced because it could only generate nine and ten-digit numbers.
ERNIE 4
- First used: April 2004
- Developed by: LogicaCMG
- Fact: ERNIE 4 was the first to use a commercially developed random number generator – the others were all developed specifically for NS&I.
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