[Tutor] All possible 16 character alphanumeric strings?

[akleider at sonic.net]

> On 09/15/2012 10:03 PM, Scurvy Scott wrote:
>>>
>>> That list would fill all the PC's on the planet a few billions times.
>>> The number of items in the list has 25 digits in it.  print 32**16
>>>
>>
>
> I can't see any reason why it changes anything.  The world doesn't have
> enough disk space to store *every* address.  If you need to calculate
> all of them, you don't have enough time.
>
> You need to rethink whatever your real problem is.  For example, if you
> were really trying to crack a safe with 32 numbers on the dial and 16
> settings to open it, perhaps you should forget all of it and get some
> nitro.  Or a stethoscope.  Or bribe somebody who knows the combination.
>  If you have to try all of the combinations systematically, you'll never
> get there.

We can probably all agree that there aren't enough resources (time,
memory, etc) to solve the problem, but that doesn't make the problem
uninteresting.
What interests me, and I acknowledge that this is more a question for a
computer science forum than a python one, is: can this be done in a non
recursive way so the limiting factor will be time, not memory?  I couldn't
think of a way.