Mp3 player shuffle algorithms

[JVS]

Does it pick a random song each time it plays a news song (i.e. it is possible to repeat one song before playing all songs on the player), does it randomly pick a permutation and then play all of them, or does it pick the first song randomly then pick the second song randomly from the reduced pool of songs not yet played?

[taterguy]

1. It reads your thoughts and decides what you want to hear

Very advanced technology

[JVS]

3. Don't lie!

[baldguy]

7. It picks what it wants to hear and makes you *believe* you wanted to hear it.

Very advanced marketing technology

[mcctatas]

2. It's FM

*that's short for 'fucking magic'

[JVS]

6. Is that how the ShamWow works too?

[PVnRT]

4. I believe it just puts all songs in random order

[Iggo]

5. Never thought about it before.

But now that I have, I'd say when you hit shuffle, it creates a single randomized playlist of all your songs, then plays from that list. I would also assume that the list is non-repetitive.

But I'm just guessing...