Ada Support for Universities (was: Floating point emulation)

[kilgallen@eisner.decus.org (Larry Kilgallen)]

In article <dewar.858686090@merv>, dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar) writes:
> <<Andrew Dunstan (amd001@its.maynick.com.au) wrote:
> [snip]
> : Most universities will not be able to purchase a meaningful support
> : contract, I guess (in Australia they are being severely squeezed by a
> : neanderthal government, and _every_ dollar has to be watched). I was
> : surprised, however, to discover that my old university doesn't appear
> : to be using GNAT, but a commercial compiler of moderate quality which
> : I suspect (will try to verify) is still an Ada83 version, on Solaris
> : platforms.>>
> 
> I am not quite sure of the context of this (since the original has not yet
> shown up at our site here), but a relevant piece of information is that
> Ada Core Technologies does provide inexpensive site licenses for universities
> covering unlimited users on multiple platforms, and a number of universities
> hold such contracts. For more information, contact sales@gnat.com.
> 
> Note that other Ada companies also provide free or inexpensive Ada
> products for use in universities. The days when the statement above
> was true are past!

And I hope this battle for mindshare will persist until the total
students reached by various Ada compilers reaches 100%.

Computer hardware companies over the past 30 years have used this
technique to gain fans entering industry.  One recent change
however is the prevalence of home computers, possibly allowing
children to be led down the path of darkness before they get
to University.

Larry Kilgallen