It’s 1951… and the
Festival of Britain
opens its doors.
One of the many venues of the Festival — which extends across much of
Britain — is the
Exhibition of Science
in South Kensington.
Here, amongst other wonders, you will see the
Ferranti NIMROD.
This is the first digital computer designed specifically to play a game
— truly the very first “Computer Game”…
In the process, it illuminates principles of binary arithmetic and
digital logic.
So, leave Lara Croft and her friends behind for a while, and journey back
to the years BT (Before Transistors), where just to see
a computer is an adventure, and to actually control
it is the ultimate thrill!
Welcome to… NIMROD!
More than seventy years ago, on the 4th of May 1951, the NIMROD computer
made its public bow. To celebrate its 50th anniversary in 2001,
a simulation of the original machine was written. It seemed only fitting
that this should run under the most modern operating system available [grin],
so it is built (only!) for HAIKU/BeOS.
More information on the simulation, and the downloadable archive,
can be found here.
For its 60th birthday, a (stripped down) playable simulation was added
to these pages too — see below.
The NIMROD was designed exclusively to play the game of ‘NIM’.
This is a simple game, where you start with a number of piles of tokens
— traditionally matches. Each player in turn takes one or more
tokens from any one pile, and the game continues until the last
token is taken from the last remaining pile.
The simplest way of playing
the game is when the winner is the one who takes the last item. There is
also a ‘Reverse’ game, where the loser is the one forced to take the
last token. NIMROD could play either version of the game. (It could also
play a couple of other variants, which are not included in the simulation.)
The interesting thing about NIM is that there is a non-obvious strategy
that will ensure a win, once it can be applied. Once one player is able to
make a ‘safe’ move, the other cannot and must leave it ‘unsafe’, so that the
first can again make it ‘safe’ next time. Furthermore, the strategy involves
viewing the numbers of tokens as binary numbers, which makes it perfect for
a computer algorithm. There is much more on this in the documentation that
accompanies the simulation (or through the ‘transcript’ link below).
You can learn more about the various parts of the machine shown in the
picture above by clicking on them. Or, if your browser doesn’t support
this, use one of the links below.
IEEE’s The Institute devotes its June 2016 issue to Artificial Intelligence,
and in
“AI Is All Around Us” (print-version title)
it says:
In fact, AI has been part of video games for more than 60 years. An early
example was Nimrod, a computer designed for the 1951 Festival of Britain
exhibition by IEEE Life Member John Bennett and built by engineer
Raymond Stuart-Williams.
It’s nice to see NIMROD mentioned, but come on…! Aside from being
hardly a “video game”, there was nothing resembling “AI” involved.
“Intelligence” surely involves at least some ability to learn, but NIMROD
was entirely fixed-program. Indeed it didn’t really have a “program” in
the sense used today — just logic gates wired together to compute
a suitable response to each game play.
I should point out that the chapter on NIMROD in Tristan Donovan’s book
(excerpted on WIRED.com, ‘gamelife section’, 2010/6/2) is entirely lifted
from this site! — Just sayin’…
If you’ve come here via the YouTube demo, which never actually shows
the game being played(!), you should probably look at this
hints page that points out what the demo maker
apparently missed… or now try it yourself, on the Challenge page!
Challenge NIMROD yourself online!.
As 2011 was NIMROD’s Diamond Anniversary — and the 10th Birthday of
this site — we celebrated with an online version of the simulation!
It should work in most not-too-ancient javascript-equipped browsers (except,
I’m afraid, on touch-controlled devices such as the iPad and other tablets
or phones).
A booklet was available at the time that described the machine and its workings
in detail. If you’re interested, you can view a (long!)
transcript.
(The strategy needed to win can also be found within those pages…)
The Australian Connection —
a reminiscence by the (then) Ferranti
engineer who came up with the idea for NIMROD.
“Das Fliegende Gehirn” —
The story of NIMROD's one-year life
told by the engineers who built it.
“It’s absolutely terrifying!” says Paul Jennings,
a columnist at the time, as he relates his encounter with NIMROD.
[ 215KB MP3, 55 sec.
From a BBC recording, reproduced under the Fair Use provisions of Copyright.]
“Faster than Thought”
The classic 1953 book was inspired by NIMROD. Its title, too, is from the
slogan associated with the machine, used on the cover of the
booklet.
After the Festival of Britain closed, in October 1951, the Ferranti NIMROD was
exhibited in Germany for three weeks. You can
find an article on that (in German!)
here (login may be required).
Here’s an attempted translation of the article.
A few years BC (“Before Computers”) in 1940, at the New York World’s fair,
there was another NIM player — the electromechanical
“Nimatron” (mentioned in
the German article above).
In its May 1951 issue, Discovery magazine featured an article on science at
the Festival, which included this painting
of NIMROD.
Colossus Returns! — back in action at Bletchley Park after more than
sixty years. Somewhat predating NIMROD (!) this was arguably the very first
electronic digital computer, and as of November 2007 a replica is running once
again. See the
BBC article for more.
(I took this photo a few years ago, while it was still under construction.)
There are a few more photos of ‘Station X’ (Bletchley Park) and its gadgets
here.
It’s 1951…
![[Facts]](IMAGES/mic.gif)
![[Transcript]](IMAGES/festival.gif)
![[Facts]](IMAGES/ferranti.gif)
![[Audio clip]](IMAGES/radio.gif)
![[Bowden]](IMAGES/Manchester.png)
“Faster than Thought”
The classic 1953 book was inspired by NIMROD. Its title, too, is from the
slogan associated with the machine, used on the cover of the
booklet.
If you ever happen to be in Berlin, you can now visit the
![[Nimatron]](IMAGES/WFW.png)
