From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.5-pre1 (2020-06-20) on ip-172-31-74-118.ec2.internal X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.0 required=3.0 tests=BAYES_40 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.5-pre1 Date: 8 May 92 09:43:11 GMT From: mcsun!uknet!gdt!brispoly!am_barry@uunet.uu.net (AM Barry) Subject: Re: ada compiler w/ edu discount Message-ID: <1992May8.094311.18836@csd.brispoly.ac.uk> List-Id: In article <2061@itexjct.jct.ac.il> avraham@itexjct.jct.ac.il (avraham shir-el) writes: > >we've been running Verdix ADA on our sun3/60 and sparcII for a while. >when purchased, verdix gave big discounts to universities. >from what i understand, now, all verdix ada sales for sun/4's r handled by >sun themselves and there r very small, if any university discounts. >about a year ago , we paid verdix ~$1.5k for VADS6.03 on the sparcII. >now, our local sunrep quoted ~$10k for SUNada. > >we're now looking for alternatives to SUNada. >can u suggest an ada compiler which is more reasonably priced than SUNada? This is a _very_ real proble, ... At Bristol Poly we upgraded to Sun 4/690 & Solbourne 5/800 + lots of Solbourne S4000s & a few Sun 4/IPCs, and in the process had to upgrade from Alsys Ada. We chose SunAda (alias Verdix) because we were told that 'it supports up to 60 users from the one license' & when asked about whether that license was machine-specific were told 'no'. Of course, on receiving the product we discovered that it was indeed machine-based so that all users now had to log into a single machine to do Ada compilations. Whilst the Ada compiler doesn't vex the 4/690 too much, AdaVision slays it with more that 10 users at once. Its a complete waste of our S4000's (28 MIPS and all) to just use them as glorified X-Terminals when using Ada, but it will cost extortionate amounts to get licenses for the 32 S4000s. Meanwhile, other users of the 4/690 are thoroughly fed up with Ada users, and the 4/690 looks laughably underpowered. It's difficult to explain to new (naive) Unix users that a machine such as that falls flat because of so few Ada users ! Any other compiler manufacturers like to come to the rescue (or Sun have a _BIG_ rethink about their academic policy!) ? -- /-----------------------------------------------------------------------\ | Alwyn Barry, Senior Lecturer, Ph: 0044 272 656261 extn. 3135 | | Computer Science Department, Bristol Polytechnic, Bristol, Avon, U.K. |