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Simula is the name of two
simulation A simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time. Simulations require the use of Conceptual model, models; the model represents the key characteristics or behaviors of the selected system or proc ...
programming language A programming language is a system of notation for writing computer programs. Most programming languages are text-based formal languages, but they may also be graphical. They are a kind of computer language. The description of a programming ...
s, Simula I and Simula 67, developed in the 1960s at the
Norwegian Computing Center Norwegian Computing Center (NR, in Norwegian: ''Norsk Regnesentral'') is a private, independent, non-profit research foundation founded in 1952. NR carries out contract research and development in the areas of computing and quantitative methods fo ...
in
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, by Ole-Johan Dahl and Kristen Nygaard.
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, it is an approximate superset of ALGOL 60, and was also influenced by the design of Simscript. Simula 67 introduced
objects Object may refer to: General meanings * Object (philosophy), a thing, being, or concept ** Object (abstract), an object which does not exist at any particular time or place ** Physical object, an identifiable collection of matter * Goal, an ai ...
, classes,
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and subclasses, virtual procedures, coroutines, and discrete event simulation, and featured
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. Other forms of subtyping (besides inheriting subclasses) were introduced in Simula derivatives. Simula is considered the first object-oriented programming language. As its name suggests, the first Simula version by 1962 was designed for doing
simulation A simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time. Simulations require the use of Conceptual model, models; the model represents the key characteristics or behaviors of the selected system or proc ...
s; Simula 67 though was designed to be a general-purpose programming language and provided the framework for many of the features of object-oriented languages today. Simula has been used in a wide range of applications such as simulating very-large-scale integration (VLSI) designs, process modeling, communication protocols,
algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specifications for performing ...
s, and other applications such as
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,
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, and
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. The influence of Simula is often understated, and Simula-type objects are reimplemented in C++, Object Pascal,
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, C#, and many other languages. Computer scientists such as Bjarne Stroustrup, creator of C++, and James Gosling, creator of Java, have acknowledged Simula as a major influence.


History

The following account is based on Jan Rune Holmevik's historical essay. Kristen Nygaard started writing computer simulation programs in 1957. Nygaard saw a need for a better way to describe the heterogeneity and the
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of a system. To go further with his ideas on a formal computer language for describing a system, Nygaard realized that he needed someone with more
computer programming Computer programming is the process of performing a particular computation (or more generally, accomplishing a specific computing result), usually by designing and building an executable computer program. Programming involves tasks such as anal ...
skills than he had. Ole-Johan Dahl joined him on his work January 1962. The decision of linking the language up to ALGOL 60 was made shortly after. By May 1962, the main concepts for a
simulation A simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time. Simulations require the use of Conceptual model, models; the model represents the key characteristics or behaviors of the selected system or proc ...
language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...
were set. ''SIMULA I'' was born, a special purpose programming language for simulating discrete event systems. Kristen Nygaard was invited to visit the Eckert–Mauchly Computer Corporation late May 1962 in connection with the marketing of their new UNIVAC 1107 computer. At that visit, Nygaard presented the ideas of Simula to
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, the director of systems programming at Univac. Bemer was a great ALGOL fan and found the Simula project compelling. Bemer was also
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of a session at the second international conference on information processing hosted by International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP). He invited Nygaard, who presented the paper "SIMULA – An Extension of ALGOL to the Description of Discrete-Event Networks". The
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got a UNIVAC 1107 in August 1963 at a considerable discount, on which Dahl implemented the SIMULA I under contract with UNIVAC. The implementation was based on the UNIVAC ALGOL 60 compiler. SIMULA I was fully operational on the UNIVAC 1107 by January 1965. In the following few years, Dahl and Nygaard spent a lot of time teaching Simula. Simula spread to several countries around the world and SIMULA I was later implemented on other computers including the Burroughs B5500 and the Russian Ural-16. In 1966
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introduced the concept of record class construct, which Dahl and Nygaard extended with the concept of prefixing and other features to meet their requirements for a generalized process concept. Dahl and Nygaard presented their paper on
Class Class or The Class may refer to: Common uses not otherwise categorized * Class (biology), a taxonomic rank * Class (knowledge representation), a collection of individuals or objects * Class (philosophy), an analytical concept used differently ...
and Subclass declarations at the IFIP Working Conference on simulation languages in
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, May 1967. This paper became the first formal definition of Simula 67. In June 1967, a conference was held to standardize the language and initiate a number of implementations. Dahl proposed to unify the type and the class concept. This led to serious discussions, and the proposal was rejected by the board. Simula 67 was formally standardized on the first meeting of the Simula Standards Group (SSG) in February 1968. Simula was influential in the development of
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and later
object-oriented programming Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of "objects", which can contain data and code. The data is in the form of fields (often known as attributes or ''properties''), and the code is in the form of ...
languages. It also helped inspire the
actor model The actor model in computer science is a mathematical model of concurrent computation that treats ''actor'' as the universal primitive of concurrent computation. In response to a message it receives, an actor can: make local decisions, create mor ...
of concurrent computation although Simula only supports coroutines and not true concurrency. In the late sixties and the early seventies, there were four main implementations of Simula: * UNIVAC 1100 by
Norwegian Computing Center Norwegian Computing Center (NR, in Norwegian: ''Norsk Regnesentral'') is a private, independent, non-profit research foundation founded in 1952. NR carries out contract research and development in the areas of computing and quantitative methods fo ...
(NCC) *
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and System/370 by NCC * CDC 3000 by
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's Joint Computer Installation at Kjeller *
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by Swedish National Defence Research Institute (FOA) These implementations were ported to a wide range of platforms. The
TOPS-10 TOPS-10 System (''Timesharing / Total Operating System-10'') is a discontinued operating system from Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) for the PDP-10 (or DECsystem-10) mainframe computer family. Launched in 1967, TOPS-10 evolved from the earlie ...
implemented the concept of public, protected, and private member variables and procedures, that later was integrated into Simula 87. Simula 87 is the latest standard and is ported to a wide range of platforms. There are mainly four implementations: * Simula AS * Lund Simula * GNU Cim * Portable Simula Revisited In November 2001, Dahl and Nygaard were awarded the IEEE John von Neumann Medal by the
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"For the introduction of the concepts underlying object-oriented programming through the design and implementation of SIMULA 67". In April 2002, they received the 2001 A. M.
Turing Award The ACM A. M. Turing Award is an annual prize given by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) for contributions of lasting and major technical importance to computer science. It is generally recognized as the highest distinction in compu ...
by the
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(ACM), with the citation: "For ideas fundamental to the emergence of object oriented programming, through their design of the programming languages Simula I and Simula 67." Dahl and Nygaard died in June and August of that year, respectively, before the ACM Turing Award Lecture that was scheduled to be delivered at the November 2002
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conference in Seattle. Simula Research Laboratory is a
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named after the Simula language, and Nygaard held a part-time position there from the opening in 2001. The new Computer Science building at the
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is named Ole Johan Dahl's House, in Dahl's honour, and the main auditorium is named Simula.


Sample code


Minimal program

The empty
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is the minimal
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in Simula, measured by the size of the
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. It consists of one thing only; a dummy statement. However, the minimal program is more conveniently represented as an empty block: Begin End; It begins executing and immediately terminates. The language lacks any
return value In computer programming, a return statement causes execution to leave the current subroutine and resume at the point in the code immediately after the instruction which called the subroutine, known as its return address. The return address is s ...
from the program.


Classic Hello world

An example of a Hello world program in Simula: Begin OutText ("Hello, World!"); Outimage; End; Simula is case-insensitive.


Classes, subclasses and virtual procedures

A more realistic example with use of classes, subclasses and virtual procedures: Begin Class Glyph; Virtual: Procedure print Is Procedure print;; Begin End; Glyph Class Char (c); Character c; Begin Procedure print; OutChar(c); End; Glyph Class Line (elements); Ref (Glyph) Array elements; Begin Procedure print; Begin Integer i; For i:= 1 Step 1 Until UpperBound (elements, 1) Do elements (i).print; OutImage; End; End; Ref (Glyph) rg; Ref (Glyph) Array rgs (1 : 4); ''! Main program;'' rgs (1):- New Char ('A'); rgs (2):- New Char ('b'); rgs (3):- New Char ('b'); rgs (4):- New Char ('a'); rg:- New Line (rgs); rg.print; End; The above example has one super class (Glyph) with two subclasses (Char and Line). There is one virtual procedure with two implementations. The execution starts by executing the main program. Simula lacks the concept of
abstract class In programming languages, an abstract type is a type in a nominative type system that cannot be instantiated directly; a type that is not abstract – which ''can'' be instantiated – is called a ''concrete type''. Every instance of an abstra ...
es, since classes with pure virtual procedures can be instantiated. This means that in the above example, all classes can be instantiated. Calling a pure virtual procedure will however produce a run-time error.


Call by name

Simula supports call by name so the Jensen's Device can easily be implemented. However, the default transmission mode for simple parameter is call by value, contrary to ALGOL which used call by name. The source code for the Jensen's Device must therefore specify call by name for the parameters when compiled by a Simula compiler. Another much simpler example is the summation function \sum which can be implemented as follows: Real Procedure Sigma (k, m, n, u); Name k, u; Integer k, m, n; Real u; Begin Real s; k:= m; While k <= n Do Begin s:= s + u; k:= k + 1; End; Sigma:= s; End; The above code uses call by name for the controlling variable (k) and the expression (u). This allows the controlling variable to be used in the expression. Note that the Simula standard allows for certain restrictions on the controlling variable in a for loop. The above code therefore uses a while loop for maximum portability. The following: Z = \sum_^ can then be implemented as follows: Z:= Sigma (i, 1, 100, 1 / (i + a) ** 2);


Simulation

Simula includes a
simulation A simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time. Simulations require the use of Conceptual model, models; the model represents the key characteristics or behaviors of the selected system or proc ...
package for doing discrete event simulations. This simulation package is based on Simula's object-oriented features and its coroutine concept. Sam, Sally, and Andy are shopping for clothes. They must share one fitting room. Each one of them is browsing the store for about 12 minutes and then uses the fitting room exclusively for about three minutes, each following a normal distribution. A simulation of their fitting room experience is as follows: Simulation Begin Class FittingRoom; Begin Ref (Head) door; Boolean inUse; Procedure request; Begin If inUse Then Begin Wait (door); door.First.Out; End; inUse:= True; End; Procedure leave; Begin inUse:= False; Activate door.First; End; door:- New Head; End; Procedure report (message); Text message; Begin OutFix (Time, 2, 0); OutText (": " & message); OutImage; End; Process Class Person (pname); Text pname; Begin While True Do Begin Hold (Normal (12, 4, u)); report (pname & " is requesting the fitting room"); fittingroom1.request; report (pname & " has entered the fitting room"); Hold (Normal (3, 1, u)); fittingroom1.leave; report (pname & " has left the fitting room"); End; End; Integer u; Ref (FittingRoom) fittingRoom1; fittingRoom1:- New FittingRoom; Activate New Person ("Sam"); Activate New Person ("Sally"); Activate New Person ("Andy"); Hold (100); End; The main block is prefixed with Simulation for enabling simulation. The simulation package can be used on any block and simulations can even be nested when simulating someone doing simulations. The fitting room object uses a queue (door) for getting access to the fitting room. When someone requests the fitting room and it's in use they must wait in this queue (Wait (door)). When someone leaves the fitting room the first one (if any) is released from the queue (Activate door.first) and accordingly removed from the door queue (door.First.Out). Person is a subclass of Process and its activity is described using hold (time for browsing the store and time spent in the fitting room) and calls procedures in the fitting room object for requesting and leaving the fitting room. The main program creates all the objects and activates all the person objects to put them into the event queue. The main program holds for 100 minutes of simulated time before the program terminates.


See also

* BETA (programming language), a modern successor to Simula


Notes


Sources

*


Further reading

*


External links


(last working version at archive.org, accessed 2022-02-26)
* {{Authority control ALGOL 60 dialect Class-based programming languages Norwegian inventions Programming languages created in 1962 Science and technology in Norway Simulation programming languages Programming languages