Nimbly PIC a winning pile! Latest incarnation of the ancient Chinese game.

No-one knows quite when the game of NIM was invented. It is thought to be of Chinese origin, but named by the Germans. The rules are very simple. A number of objects (pebbles, marbles, stones, coins, cards, but usually matchsticks) are placed into a number of piles. Each player takes it in turn to remove one or more objects from one and only one pile, applying simple binary logic. Whoever takes the last object wins.

NIM has had a long standing relationship with electronic devices. As early as 1940, Westinghouse displayed Nimatron at the New York Trade Fair. This one tonne machine won over 90% of the games it played against over 100,000 people!

The author’s own interest in electronics arose after seeing a NIM machine proudly exhibited by a sixth form member of the Electronics Club at a school open day in the early 1970s. Based on a design published in Practical Electronics, his marvelously noisy machine used pushbuttons, uniselectors, and light bulbs to replace the clunky rotary switches and indicators of the original design.

With regards to this current project, it seemed natural and timely to bring the NIM/electronics relationship up to date, and deploy today’s PIC technology to play this simple, but strategically challenging game.