HISTORY OF

SIMULATION
SOFTWARE
History of simulation software is
based on Nance[1995].
Breaks the years 1955 to 1986 in to
5 periods.
1955-60 : The Period of Search
1961-65 : The Advent
1966-70 :The Formative Period
1971-78 : The Expansion Period
1979-86 : The period of
Consolidation and Regeneration
Later one more period is added
which is most recent period:


1987-Present:The Period of
Integrated Environment
The Period Of Search
(1955-60)
Much effort was expended in the
search of :
Unifying concepts and
Developments of reusable routines to
facilitate simulation.
The Advent (1961-65)
The simulation programming lang. in
use today appeared in this period.
In the beginning there were:
FORTRAN: Based on packages such
as SIMSCRIPT & GASP (General
Activity Simulation program )
ALGOL : Descendent of SIMULA
GPSS (General Purpose Simulation
System )
The first process interaction SPLs:
GPSS (General Purpose Simulation
System )
It is used for quick simulation of
communication and computer
systems.
GPSS got popularity due to easy in
use.
It based on block diagram
representation similar to process flow
diagram and is suited for queuing
models of all kind.
SIMSCRIPT(1963) which is influenced
by FORTRAN but later it uses its own
SPL.
It is based on event scheduling.


GASP(1961) based on ALGOL but later
it based on FORTRAN.
GASP also used flow chart symbols
It is not a language proper but a
collection of FORTRAN ROUTINES

The Formative Period
(1966-70 )
Concepts are reviewed and refined to
promote a more consistent representation
of each languages world view.
In this period due to rapid H/W
advancement and user demands forced
GPSS to undergo major revision:
GPSS/360:Extension to earlier version of
GPSS.
Emerged for the IBM 360 computer.
SIMSCRIPT II: it having adv in SPLs
with its free from English-like
language and forgiving compiler.

ECSL, descendent of CSL was
developed.

The Expansion Period
(1971-78)
Effort were made this period to
attempt to simplify the modeling
process.

GPSS/NORDEN: a pioneering effort
that offered an interactive, visual
online environment.
GPSS/H(1977): for IBM Mainframes,
later for minicomputers and PC.
It compiled and reportedly 5-30
times faster than standard GPSS
with interactive debugging.
GASP IV(1971): It uses state
events in addition to time event.
Consolidation and
Regeneration(1979-86)
It is beginning of SPL ,written for, or
adapted to desktop computers and
the microcomputers.
GASP appeared:
1)SLAM II
2)SIMAN


SLAM (Simulation Language for
Alternative Modeling ) provide
multiple modeling perspectives and
combined modeling capabilities.

SIMAN (SImulation ANalysis )
proposed a general modeling
capability found in SPLs such as
GPSP-IV,but it also had a block
diagram component similar in some
respect to SLAM and GPSS.
It run under MS-DOS constraints.
The Present Period
(1987-Present)
For the growth of SPLs on personal
computer and the emergence of
simulation environments with
graphical user interfaces, animation
and other visualization tools.
Many of these environment also
contain input data and output data
analyzer.