Fleshler, M., & Hoffman, H. S. (1962). A progression for generating variable-interval schedules. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 5, 529-530.

No abstract; this is the authors' first paragraph:

In most laboratories, a tape-reading device is used to program variable-interval schedules (VI's) in which the intervals have been derived rom the terms in a progression. In the ideal variable-interval schedule, reinforcement (rf.) would occur with some predetermined average interval between rf's; but the probability of reinforcement [P(rf)] would not be correlated with any temporal variables.