SIMULA I

language SIMUlation LAnguage.

An extension to ALGOL 60 for the Univac 1107 designed in

1962 by Kristen Nygaard and Ole-Johan Dahl and implemented in

1964. SIMULA I was designed for discrete simulation. It

introduced the record class, leading the way to dataabstraction and object-oriented programming languages like

Smalltalk. It also featured coroutines.

SIMULA's philosophy was the result of addressing the problems

of describing complex systems for the purpose of simulating

them. This philosophy proved to be applicable for describing

complex systems generally (not just for simulation) and so

SIMULA is a general-purpose object-oriented application

programming language which also has very good discrete event

simulation capability. Virtually all OOP products are derived

in some manner from SIMULA.

For a description of the evolution of SIMULA and therefore the

fundamental concepts of OOP, see Dahl and Nygaard in ["History

of Programming Languages". Ed. R. W. Wexelblat.

Addison-Wesley, 1981].

(1995-03-29)