Simula

A family of languages developed in Norway in the 1960's and specifically designed to create simulations in. Supersets of Algol 60, the Simula languages are notable for being the first object oriented languages in the world and being the predecessor to both Smalltalk and C++, while the object oriented features of Smalltalk over time moved quite a bit away from their Simula origins, C++ retains the object oriented model it inherited in a surprisingly faithful fashion.

Like so many older programming languages Simula used to be spelled with all caps, or SIMULA, however since the ratification of the Simula 87 standard the convention has been to spell it like any other noun, although when referring to classic versions the all caps convention is commonly used, i.e. SIMULA 66 and so on.

History

The project was initiated in 1962 by Kristen Nygaard, and he alongside Ole-Johan Dahl were the main designers of the language, at the time both were working for the Norwegian Computing Center.

OS/2 implementations

• Cim - Open source - Discontinued - Simula to C translator
• PC Simula - Commercial - Discontinued

DOS implementations

• Cim - Open source - Discontinued - Simula to C translator
• PC Simula - Commercial - Discontinued - Now freeware

Java implementations

• J-Sim - Open source - Current - Simula like rather than pure Simula.

Publications

• G.M. Birtwistle: SIMULA Begin - Auerbach 1973, ISBN 91-44-06211-7
• R.J. Pooley: An Introduction to Programming in Simula - Blackwell Scientific 1987, ISBN 0-632-01611-6
• Bjørn Kirkerud: Object-Oriented Programming with Simula - Addison-Wesley 1989, ISBN 0-201-17574-6

• The Birth of Simula by Stein Krogdahl
• An old Simula information text file
• Andrew P. Black: Object-oriented programming: some history, and challenges for the next fifty years
• Jan Rune Holmevik: Compiling Simula - A published article on the history of Simula (PDF)
• Ole-Johan Dahl: The Birth of Object Orientation: the Simula Languages (PDF)
• A list of papers by Jacob Palme on the subject of Simula.
• Gregory L. Dietrich: Adapting a portable SIMULA compiler to Perkin-Elmer computers in a UNIX environment in PDF format - From 1986.
• Jaroslav Sklenar: Introduction To OOP In SIMULA

Links

• Simula info
• Simula information page from the University of Montreal.
• Simula 67 info
• An archive of Peter Sylvester's Simula page - From Archive.org - This was by far the most comprehensive Simula resource on the internet.
• The Simula Programming Language - Sundry info

Tutorials

• TutorialsPoint Simula "IDE"

Standards

• The original paper on SIMULA 67 that most compilers referenced is called Common Base Language.
• The Simula 86 standard