Re: Meridian compatable with Macintosh system 7?

[swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!caen!usenet.coe.montana.edu!milton!mfel dman@gatech.edu (Michael Feldman)]

In article <1991Sep19.134825.10076@freedom.msfc.nasa.gov> robichau@freedom.msfc
.nasa.gov (Paul Robichaux) writes:
>
>About a month ago, the Meridian sales rep who handles government/contractor 
>sales in Georgia told me in a phone conversation that Meridian *does not* plan
>to support the Macintosh compiler any further; i.e., they will NOT devote 
>resources to things like support for new versions of the O/S.
>
>His claim was that they'd only sold about 300 copies of the Mac version, and 
>that such a small number meant their resources would be more productively
>invested elsewhere.
>
I have heard similar things from Meridian principals. This is really a cryin'
shame, because Meridian has a decent Mac system as a starting point. It is
all too typical of the Ada business that companies won't make much
investment in developing a market.

As an educator who likes and promotes using Ada in curricula, I hear over
and over that one of the things really holding Ada back in education is
the lack of a Mac system suitable for education. An MPW-based system is OK
for serious work, but I wouldn't wish it on beginning students. The Ada
world needs its Think Pascal or MetroWerks Modula-2. Can anyone help
generate ideas about how we can get one? Maybe Meridian would like to
deal their system off to someone who'd like to repackage it?

Mike

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael B. Feldman
Visiting Professor 1991-92               Professor
Dept. of Comp. Sci. and Engrg.           Dept. of Elect. Engrg. and Comp. Sci.
University of Washington FR-35           The George Washington University
Seattle, WA 98105                        Washington, DC 20052
(206) 685-1376 (voice)                   (202) 994-5253 (voice)
(206) 543-2969 (fax)                     (202) 994-5296 (fax)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------