REPLY Renaming System Dynamics (SD6383)

[SDMAIL George Richardson]

Posted by  George Richardson <gpr at albany.edu>


>On Apr 5, 2007, at 6:04 AM, SDMAIL ybarlas wrote:
> how about sysdyn?   (A sysdyn method, sysdyn model, sysdyn  approach...)


Things come around.  Here's a minor historical note:

"Sysdyn" was the name I gave to the program of subroutines I wrote in  
BASIC in 1973 to enable my Simon's Rock students to build and  
simulate system dynamics models on a Digital Equipment Corporation  
PDP-8E computer.  The PDP-8E was a box about 2.5 feet across by 3  
feet deep by 1 foot high that contained 8K of core memory.  (Really:   
8K!)  We stored our models on punched paper tape and used a 10  
characters-per-second teletype as the input and output device.  
It  was a technological revolution when we got a DecWriter that typed at  
30 characters per second.

Sysdyn could handle graphical functions (both TABLE and TABHL) and  
third order delays and produced typed graphs that were  
indistinguishable from DYNAMO.  We used it in all my modeling courses  
at Simon's Rock until I left in 1979 to start my PhD at MIT.  
It  didn't travel widely, but it did travel far:  it was used in those  
early days by Ante Munitic on tiny computers in Yugoslavia and by  
Dennis Meadows as the early beginnings of the simulation engine he  
built to enable his first simulation games to run on very simple  
computers in BASIC anywhere in the world.

So it would be quite nostalgic for me and my early college students  
of long ago to see the name "sysdyn" as the name for the field.  
I  didn't copyright it, so it's yours for the taking.  But personally I  
fear it would be too much of a revolution for the rest of the field  
and for our international reputation.

That is not to say that Yaman's concerns about the rest of the  
world's confusions about our field's identify and name are  
groundless.  Far from it.   I guess I am hoping that if we persist,  
the world will have to recognize us.  I hope that's not a silly hope.

Still, I am intrigued by Magne's observation that the field is known  
as one word to Scandinavians ("systemdynamikk") and Germans  
("Systemdynamik").  That suggests that the English equivalent  
"systemdynamics" is quite plausible.  But the conservative in me  
still balks at trying to change global naming practice, fearing all  
we would get is more confusion, and the condescending reaction of  
other more established fields that "we blinked," we had to admit  
that  out name (field?) wasn't working.

I still hope that a never-ending tide of great work that others can  
not avoid talking about, boldly labeled "system dynamics" or "System  
Dynamics" by authors from all over, will win the day.

..George 
Posted by  George Richardson <gpr at albany.edu>
posting date  Thu, 5 Apr 2007 09:04:09 -0400