[starlogo-users] newbie - Data import-output and discrete random number generation

[Francisco J. Zagmutt]

Dear StarLogo community

I just "discovered" StarLogo and I am very excited about its ease of use and 
capabilities!   I have a couple of general questions so I can have a better 
idea of the potential uses that I could give to StarLogo in my work (disease 
spread simulation modeling).

- Can external data be imported in the models?  For example, can I import 
actual x,y coordinates to be used as turtles and patches?

- Is distance calculated considering a flat surface? i.e. no adjustment for 
sphericity of the globe

- Does StarLogo support random number generation other than Gaussian and 
uniform?  For example; is it possible to randomly generate numbers from 
binomial or Poisson distributions?

- Can detailed simulation output (other than graphs and pictures) be saved 
on the fly? Can numerical output be saved in flat files or any other format 
for posterior analyses?

-  In case that some of these capabilities are not available; is there a way 
to implement custom functions in other language (i.e. JAVA, C, FORTRAN) and 
call them from StarLogo?  For example, to calculate an exact binomial 
probability one would need a factorial function which apparently does not  
currently exist in StarLogo.

- Is there a general "rule of thumb" for the maximum number of turtles that 
StarLogo can handle well?

I searched through some of the commands and I could not find further 
information on these topics.

Thanks a bunch!

Francisco