SIMSCRIPT

SIMSCRIPT is a free-form, English-like general-purpose simulation language conceived by Harry Markowitz and Bernard Hausner at the RAND Corporation in 1962. It was implemented as a Fortran preprocessor on the IBM 7090^[1] and was designed for large discrete event simulations. It influenced Simula.^[2]

Though earlier versions were released into the public domain, SIMSCRIPT was commercialized by Markowitz's company, California Analysis Center, Inc. (CACI), which produced proprietary versions SIMSCRIPT I.5^[3][4] and SIMSCRIPT II.5.

SIMSCRIPT II.5

SIMSCRIPT II.5^[5][6] was the last pre-PC incarnation of SIMSCRIPT, one of the oldest computer simulation languages. Although military contractor CACI released it in 1971, it still enjoys wide use in large-scale military and air-traffic control simulations.^[7][8]

SIMSCRIPT II.5 is a powerful, free-form, English-like, general-purpose simulation programming language. It supports the application of software engineering principles, such as structured programming and modularity, which impart orderliness and manageability to simulation models.^[9]

SIMSCRIPT III

SIMSCRIPT III^[10] Release 4.0 was available by 2009,^[11] and by then it ran on Windows 7, SUN OS and Linux and has Object-oriented features.^[12]

By 1997, SIMSCRIPT III already had a GUI interface to its compiler.^[13] The latest version is Release 5; earlier versions already supported 64-bit processing.^[14]

PL/I implementation

A PL/I implementation was developed during 1968-1969, based on the public domain version released by RAND corporation.^[15]

See also

• QUIKSCRIPT
• GPSS

References

1. Reviews, C. T. I. (2016). Simulation With Arena. ISBN 978-1467273411. SIMSCRIPT ... was implemented asa Fortran preprocessor on the IBM 7090
2. Kristen Nygaard (1978). "The Development of the SIMULA Languages" (PDF). The development of .. SIMULA I and SIMULA 67... were influenced by the design of SIMSCRIPT ...
3. M. E. Kuhl. "The SIMSCRIPT III Programming Language for Modular Object ..." (PDF). ... and was followed by SIMSCRIPT I.5 from CACI in 1965
4. "A Look Back in Time: The CACI Story".
5. Philip J Kiviat (January 1973). Simscript II.5: Programming language. Consolidated Analysis Centers.
6. Edward C. Russell (1983). Building simulation models with SIMSCRIPT II.5. ISBN 9780918417008.
7. 1988 magazine quote: "today used principally by the U. S. military."
8. William G. Shepherd Jr. (September 1988). "Market Value - PCs on Wall Street". PC Computing. pp. 150–157.
9. Russell, Edward C. (1983). Building Simulation models with SIMSCRIPT II.5. Los Angeles: CACI.
10. "The SIMSCRIPT III programming language". doi:10.1109/WSC.2005.1574302. S2CID 8577001. SIMSCRIPT III is a programming language for discrete-event simulation. It is a major extension of its predecessor, SIMSCRIPT II.5, providing full support for ... {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
11. "SIMSCRIPT III Object-Oriented, Modular, Integrated software development tool". simscript.com.
12. Harry M. Markowitz (2009). Selected Works. p. 152. ISBN 978-9814470216. I told Ana Marjanski, who headed the SIMSCRIPT III project, that SIMSCRIPT already has entities, attributes plus sets. She explained that the clients want object ...
13. "SIMSCRIPT III User's Manual" (PDF). June 26, 1997.
14. "CACI Products". Retrieved March 12, 2019.
15. Jack Belzer; Albert G. Holzman; Allen Kent (1979). Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Technology: Volume 13. ISBN 978-0824722630. SIMSCRIPT. This PL/I based version, first developed in 1968-1969 ... of SIMSCRIPT I, particularly in large simulations at The RAND Corporation

External links

• CACI SIMSCRIPT page
• Oral history interview with Harry M. Markowitz, Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota - Markowitz discusses his development of portfolio theory, sparse matrices, and his work at the RAND Corporation and elsewhere on simulation software development (including computer language SIMSCRIPT), modeling, and operations research.