The Origin of the Winter Simulation Conferences

Discrete-event simulation has never been, and is not now, part of the computer theory or applications mainstream. Discrete-event simulation is an asynchronous procedure in which time jumps from the current event to the time of the next event. To a large degree, it developed as a counter element in the emerging computer culture of the 1960s a tool for support in an area that aimed toward the practical rather than the theoretical, and toward the complex rather than the simple.