SUBSIM Radio Room Forums - 82 years ago -- The first computer game

April marks the 82nd anniversary of the first computer game. In April 1940, Edward Condon displayed his invention which he called Nimatron.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimatron

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the device was a non-programmable digital computer composed of electro-mechanical relays which could respond to players' choices in the game in a dozen different patterns. The machine, which weighed over a metric ton, displayed four lines of seven light bulbs both in front of the player and on four sides of an overhead cube. Players alternated turns with the machine in removing one or more lights from one of the rows until the lights were all extinguished. The calculations were purposely delayed to give the illusion that the machine was considering moves, and winners received a token.

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The machine itself was designed and built by Gerald L. Tawney and Willard A. Derr, who worked in the relay division of Westinghouse. Although electronic vacuum tues were faster than electro-mechanical relays at processing information, the machine was designed and built with electro-mechanical relays as vacuum tubes were less robust and speed was not an issue.

Even with relays, the machine was considered too fast; it could still make its turn in milliseconds as opposed to the microseconds it would have taken with vacuum tubes, which was felt to be demoralizing to players.

The team added a delay relay to the game of a couple seconds to make it appear that the machine was thinking about the move to make instead of the physical algorithm nearly instantly responding. The state of the game was represented with four columns of seven lights; on the player's turn they decided on a column to take lights from and pressed a button one or more times to turn out lights in that column, then pressed another to give the machine a turn. The set of lights were displayed on the front of the machine, as well as on four sides of a cube above the machine to allow spectators to follow the game. If the player won, the machine produced a token with the inscription "Nim Champ".