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Written by Geoffrey Darnton
PSL/PSA is perhaps the world's oldest and most comprehensive set of tools for stating system requirements. It started in 1968 and has had a very impressive set of sponsors at various times.
The history of CASE (Computer Aided/Assisted Software/System Engineering) shows that since the mid-1980s the evolution of the market for tools moved substantially in the direction of PC-based graphical techniques using methods such as data flow diagrams and data models. There is a view that these PC-based graphical techniques are generally only useful for relatively trivial systems, and when used for large (size or complexity) the techniques will be dysfunctional by rendering the proper checking of completeness and consistency either extremely difficult or impossible. الكولاجين Linguistic techniques such as PSL/PSA have no known limit of scalability (there is anecdote of one system modelled with PSL/PSA handling around 35,000 objects and 65,000 relations). Unfortunately there has been very little research in this area, so even today the choice of method is more likely to be based on familiarity, prejudice or ideology rather than supportable evaluation of alternatives.
PSL/PSA was the best-known output from the ISDOS (Information System Design and Optimization System) Project at the University of Michigan (UoM) under Professor Daniel Teichroew in the Department of Industrial and Operations Engineering. That project was sponsored by many substantial organizations.
Most ISDOS products were developed at UoM between 1968** and about 1983/4. Then a separate commercial operation (ISDOS Inc) was set up. After that, commercial operations were separated from UoM and went through a series of ownerships as described briefly in COMMERCIAL OPERATIONS.
There are additional sections to be added to the website:
- ISDOS - covering UoM activities
- Commercial Operations covering exploitation
- Future - what next for PSL/PSA
- Related Tools
**The ISDOS Project commenced initially during 1967 in the School of Management at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. It moved to the University of Michigan in 1968. The terms 'Problem Statement Language' and 'Problem Statement Analyzer' are used right from the beginning in ISDOS Working Paper No. 1 (1967).
Additional tools have been developed alongside PSL/PSA and independently
The language evolved from 1968-1991. Key version ranges were:
| Date Range |
Version(s) |
| 1968 |
1.0 |
| 1970 |
2.0 |
| 1975 |
3.0 |
| 1977 |
4.2 |
| - 1981 |
5.0 - 5.2 |
| 1987 - 1991 |
6r0 - 6r3 |
| 1991 - 2011 |
use on various large projects |
| 2012 on - |
7.0 - |
The major phases of the ownership of PSL/PSA are shown in the following table:
| Date Range |
Ownership of PSL/PSA |
| 1968 - circa 1983 |
University of Michigan ISDOS Project |
| circa 1983 - circa 1987 |
ISDOS Inc. |
| circa 1987 - circa 1990 |
Meta Systems Ltd. |
| circa 1990 - 1996 |
LBMS Ltd. |
| 1996 onwards |
Geoffrey Darnton |
The last release generally available commercially was PSL/PSA Version 6.0 Release 3 around September 1990.
A simplified version of Problem Statement Language (PSL-lite) will be made available, and the language placed in the public domain (along with the original PSL). الزنك Commercial exploitation can be done by anyone who wishes to implement the language. Copyright will be retained to ensure a mechanism to certify compliance and prevent abuse. A new full version of PSL will be available commercially.
PSL/PSA, Related Tools and associated training can be provided now on reasonable commercial terms to anyone who has a need or interest to use them.