The Nimrod was a special purpose computer that played the game of Nim

Nim

Nim is a mathematical game of strategy in which two players take turns removing objects from distinct heaps. On each turn, a player must remove at least one object, and may remove any number of objects provided they all come from the same heap....

, designed and built by Ferranti

Ferranti

Ferranti or Ferranti International plc was a UK electrical engineering and equipment firm that operated for over a century from 1885 until it went bankrupt in 1993. Known primarily for defence electronics, the Company was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index but ceased trading in 1993.The...

 and displayed at the Exhibition of Science during the 1951 Festival of Britain

Festival of Britain

The Festival of Britain was a national exhibition in Britain in the summer of 1951. It was organised by the government to give Britons a feeling of recovery in the aftermath of war and to promote good quality design in the rebuilding of British towns and cities. The Festival's centrepiece was in...

. Later, when the Festival ended, the computer was shown in Berlin. Due to its historical importance, famous German politicians were present including Konrad Adenauer

Konrad Adenauer

Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer was a German statesman. He was the chancellor of the West Germany from 1949 to 1963. He is widely recognised as a person who led his country from the ruins of World War II to a powerful and prosperous nation that had forged close relations with old enemies France,...

, the Federal Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and Ludwig Erhard

Ludwig Erhard

Ludwig Wilhelm Erhard was a German politician affiliated with the CDU and Chancellor of West Germany from 1963 until 1966. He is notable for his leading role in German postwar economic reform and economic recovery , particularly in his role as Minister of Economics under Chancellor Konrad Adenauer...

, the Federal Minister for Economic Affairs.

It was the first digital computer exclusively designed to play a game, though its true intention was to illustrate the principles of the (then novel) digital computer for the public. A smaller replica of Nimrod has been built for the Computerspielemuseum Berlin

Computerspielemuseum Berlin

The Computerspielemuseum Berlin was founded in 1997. From 1997 to 2000, it had a permanent exhibition in Berlin. Afterwards, it became an online only museum. In 2011, it reopened its permanent exhibition in Berlin's neighborhood of Friedrichshain...

.

Structure

Nimrod
1.	Instructions panel: instructions that Nimrod follows during the game
2.	Main panel: bulbs mirror the control panel (5) to show the process of the game to the observers; underneath the bulbs there is a legend describing the possible states of the game.
3.	Panel shows the current calculations of the processor during slow game speed; a legend for this is located on panel (1)
4.	Four bays holding the machine's valves (tubes). Each bay contains 120 valves, arranged as six blocks of twenty. (Only 350 of the installed valves were active in the computer; the others were just being 'burned in' to avoid early failure.)
5.	Nimrod's control panel: demonstrator would typically sit on the side closer to the computer, while the player would sit on the other side of the desk.