A Mind Stimulating
Game
In Memory of Late
Dr. C. K. Tung
Offered
As A Game in Mi-Card
IPO2U.COM,
Inc.
36 Saw Mill River Road
Hawthorme, NY 10532
Introduction
According to Dr.
C.K. Tung and others, NIM is derived from an ancient Chinese game where
people pick up pebbles out of a predetermined number of pebbles according
to a simple rule such as each person can pick up one, two or three pebbles
at a time. The person who ended up picking up the last pebble either wins
or loses as per agreement made prior to the game. There are claims that
the name of NIM (and the game algorithm) is invented by C. L. Bouton of
Harvard University 100 years ago. Others acknowledge the Chinese origin
but trace the word nim to German nehmen or nimm (to take). There is no
argumnet that NIM is a mathematic game.
In Memory of Dr. C. K. Tung
Dr. C. K. Tung, who
was educated as a mathematician, was facinated by the variations of this
game and the mathematic proof of how each game (a given pattern and set
of rules) could be played to win for certainty. He had devoted considerable
time after he retired from IBM to develop a computer version of the NIM
game. He had tried to interest many of his colleagues and friends (including
the author) to create new games (new pattern and rules) to be developed
into a computer game. The challenge of course is to program the game strategy.
Dr. Tung had programmed a few games which can be played by a person against
the computer or between two people. Dr. Tung was interested in making
NIM as a popular game for stimulating the mind. Unfortunately, he passed
away in 2002 before he was able to popularize his collections. In memory
of him, we include a few of his collections in this Mi-Card (Marketing
information Card for businesses) as mind stimulating games.
How to Play the Nim Game
General Rule
The game is represented
by a geometrical pattern consisting of marbles located at a number of
nodes or intersections. The pattern may be perceived as a two dimentional
or three dimensional object (sort of like a molecule with atoms and bonds).
The general rule is that players take turn to remove the marbles according
to a specific rule. The person picks up the last marble is the winner.
Specific Rules
The specific
rules define how many marbles can be picked up at one time and the geometrical
relationship between the marbles. For example, one up to six marbles may
be picked up at one time. Except the single marble, the marbles must be
connected by bonds to form a pattern such as a connected pair, traingle,
square or a hexagon. One may also have a specific rule about color matching
if the marbles are color coded. For example, the triangle of marbles must
be of the same color. The specific rules are given for a specific game
in the game instruction menu.
Game 1 - Lotus
Click here
to download the game and date file onto your computer. When "File Download" dialogue box appear,
please select "Save this program to disk", select or create a
new directory to save "gnim.zip", then click "OK".
After download the "gnim.zip", please using WinZip to uncompress
files into a directory , for example, directory "GNIM", on your
PC.
This game need run in a MS/DOS Window. Please open up a DOS command
window, and click "ALT+ RETURN" to make the DOS window full
screen display. Then go to the directory where you just saved the "gnim.exe",
and run this program "gnim.exe".
In the program
interface, the command buttons are as follows:
- Click
"Game" to enter the game
name - "LOTUSR2"
- Click "Start" button
to start
the game
- If you have any
questions, click "HELP" button to get help for how to play
the game.
Related Web Sites
- http://www.glenbrook.k12.il.us/gbs/Academics/gbsmat/Internet%20Projects/Nim/nim.html
- http://www.ics.uci.edu/~eppstein/cgt/
- http://gotofreegames.com/nim/free_nim_puzzle.htm
- http://www.cut-the-knot.org/nim_st.shtml
- http://www.2020tech.com/fruit/
- http://www.csm.astate.edu/Nim.html
- http://www.darkfish.com/nimskulls/nimskulls.html
- http://www.chlond.demon.co.uk/Nim.html
- http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~amc/LoseNIM/
- http://www.spdcc.com:8431/nim.html
Acknowledgement
The games are copyrighted
in memory of Dr. C. K. Tung. This article with references is written
by his friend Dr. Ifay Chang
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