Nimrod (computer) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids Nimrod |
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The Nimrod computer on display at the Computerspielemuseum Berlin
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| Designer(s) | John Makepeace Bennett Raymond Stuart-Williams |
| Platform(s) | Computer game |
| Release date(s) | May 5, 1951 |
| Genre(s) | Nim |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
The Nimrod was an early computer built in the United Kingdom in 1951. It was specially made to play a game called Nim. The computer was huge, about 12 feet wide, 9 feet deep, and 5 feet tall.
John Makepeace Bennett designed it, and Raymond Stuart-Williams built it. People at the 1951 Festival of Britain could play Nim against the computer's AI. Players pushed buttons on a panel, and lights on the machine showed their moves. The Nimrod would then make its move, with more lights showing its calculations.
You could even slow down the computer's thinking process. This let a presenter explain exactly what the computer was doing. The Nimrod was built to show off Ferranti's computer design skills, not just to be fun. But most people were more interested in playing the game! After the Festival, the Nimrod was shown in Berlin before it was taken apart.
The game of Nim on the Nimrod is considered one of the first computer games with a visual display. It came out soon after the 1947 invention of the cathode-ray tube amusement device. That was the first interactive electronic game to use an electronic screen. The Nimrod also appeared a year after Bertie the Brain, another computer that played tic-tac-toe. However, the Nimrod used light bulbs instead of a screen with moving pictures. Because of this, some people don't call it a true "video game."
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Building the Nimrod Computer
In the summer of 1951, the United Kingdom held the Festival of Britain. This big event showed off British achievements in science, technology, and art. A British engineering company called Ferranti, which was starting to build computers, promised to create an exhibit for the Festival.
The Idea for a Game-Playing Computer
In late 1950, John Makepeace Bennett had an idea. He was an Australian working for Ferranti. He suggested that the company build a computer that could play the game of Nim. In Nim, players take turns removing at least one object from a group. The goal is to be the player who takes the very last object.
Bennett's idea was inspired by an older Nim-playing machine called "Nimatron". This machine was shown in 1940 at the New York World's Fair. It was built from old-fashioned electrical parts and weighed over a ton! Even though Bennett suggested a game, his main goal was to show how good computers were at math. Nim uses math rules, so it was a perfect way to show off Ferranti's computer design and programming skills.
How the Nimrod Was Built
Ferranti started building the computer on December 1, 1950. Engineer Raymond Stuart-Williams helped turn Bennett's design into a real machine. They finished building it by April 12, 1951.
The Nimrod was a huge machine. It was 12 feet wide, 9 feet deep, and 5 feet tall. Most of its size came from the old electronic parts (vacuum tubes) and the light bulbs that showed the game. The actual computer parts were only a tiny bit of the whole machine. The Nimrod looked like a big box with panels of lights. In front of it was a raised stand with buttons. These buttons matched the lights, which represented the objects players could remove in the game.
Playing the Game
Players would sit at the stand and press buttons to make their moves. One panel of lights showed the current state of the game. Another panel showed the computer's calculations as it made its move. The computer could even be set to calculate at different speeds. This allowed a person demonstrating the machine to explain exactly what the computer was doing in real time.
A visual guide was attached to the Nimrod. It explained what the computer was doing during its turn. It also showed possible game situations and how the lights would represent them. Signs would light up to show whose turn it was or if someone had won the game.
Showing Off the Nimrod
On May 5, 1951, the Nimrod computer was shown at the Festival of Britain. It was called the Nimrod Digital Computer. Advertisements said it was "faster than thought" and an "electronic brain." It only played the game of Nim. Players sat at the raised stand, and a demonstrator sat between them and the computer. The Nimrod could play either the normal game of Nim or a "reverse" version.
A small guidebook was sold to visitors. It explained how computers worked and how the Nimrod worked. It also advertised Ferranti's other projects. The guidebook explained that using a game to show off the machine's power didn't mean it was just for fun. It compared the math behind Nim to how computers could model a country's economy. Famous computer scientist Alan Turing was one of the people who played the Nimrod at the Festival.
Public Reaction
Even though the Nimrod was meant to show off technology, most people at the Festival were more interested in playing the game. They didn't care as much about the programming and engineering behind it. Bennett said that "most of the public were quite happy to gawk at the flashing lights and be impressed." A BBC Radio journalist said that everyone at the festival "came to a standstill" when they saw the "tremendous gray refrigerator."
After the Festival of Britain, the Nimrod was shown for three weeks in October at the Berlin Industrial Show. It also attracted big crowds there. The economics minister of West Germany, Ludwig Erhard, even came to see it. The Nimrod was then briefly shown in Toronto. After that, it was taken apart because it had served its purpose.
The Nimrod was not made to be an entertainment product. So, Ferranti didn't make any more games like it. They continued to work on building computers for general purposes. However, the game of Nim was used to demonstrate other computers over the next few years. These included the Norwegian NUSE (1954) and the Swedish SMIL (1956).
Nimrod's Place in History
The Nimrod was created only four years after the 1947 invention of the cathode-ray tube amusement device. That was the first known interactive electronic game. The Nimrod also came out one year after Bertie the Brain, another computer-based game with a visual display.
Some people consider the Nimrod to be one of the first video games, possibly the second. While definitions can differ, the earlier cathode-ray tube amusement device was purely an analog electrical game. The Nimrod and Bertie didn't have an electronic screen, but they both ran a game on a computer. The tic-tac-toe game OXO and a draughts program by Christopher Strachey were made a year later in 1952. These were the first computer games to show visuals on an electronic screen instead of using light bulbs.
