I can tie Rhose's 86 by a tiny adjustment to yours:

$j=1;print$"x--$h,$_-1?map(rand>$f?"=":qw(
0 @ * +)[rand 4],1..($j+=2)):"*",$/for 1..$h
[download]

I moved a set of parens. And I can trim it even more:

print$"x--$h,$_-1?map(rand>
$f?"=":qw(0 @ * +)[rand 4],
1..($j+=2)):"*",$/for++$j..$h
[download]

I moved $j's assignment to the "fore" loop. 83 characters. And then another adjustment that gets rid of $j entirely, and puts me at (an updated) 77 -- the parens around map's arguments were unneeded.

print$"x--$h,$_-1?map rand>
$f?"=":qw(0 @ * +)[rand 4],
2..$_*2:"*",$/for 1..$h
[download]

_____________________________________________________
Jeff[japhy]Pinyan: Perl, regex, and perl hacker.
s++=END;++y(;-P)}y js++=;shajsj<++y(p-q)}?print:??;

---

---

• Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
• Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:

  <code> <a> <b> <big> <blockquote> <br /> <dd> <dl> <dt> <em> <font> <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <hr /> <i> <li> <nbsp> <ol> <p> <small> <strike> <strong> <sub> <sup> <table> <td> <th> <tr> <tt> <u> <ul>

• Snippets of code should be wrapped in <code> tags not <pre> tags. In fact, <pre> tags should generally be avoided. If they must be used, extreme care should be taken to ensure that their contents do not have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor intervention).
• Want more info? How to link or How to display code and escape characters are good places to start.