Re: AdaZ

[mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman)]

In article <731@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu> wellerd@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu (Dave Weller) writes:
--
--Yes, it's quite a bargain.  The question is:  Will Meridian continue
--this practice?  My mailing indicated that on Dec 25th, the price
--jumps up to $495 (Merry Christmas :-) ).  I know a lot of students

It'd be nice if folks called Meridian to ascertain what's going on.
They have told me and anyone who asked that their student price will be $149. 
forever, and that after the attention they got at Tri-Ada the "introductory" 
price will hold for at least another month. My guess is that it'll hold for 
longer than that, maybe forever.

--to take out a second mortgage.  Of course, somehow, I can't imagine
--Alsys or Telesoft slashing prices (Imagine Apple cutting the cost
--of a Mac IIfx in half)..

Well, neither Alsys nor TeleSoft will run on an unadorned AT; Meridian
charges a lot for _their_ 386/extended mode system too. Sad but true.

As for Apple: at least they are trying to do _something_ at the low end. Now
if only somebody would bring out a usable Mac Ada (not an MPW tool but a
reall Mac Ada compiler)...By the way: Meridian will sell their Mac Ada to
students for $200.
  
-->  If you know someone who needs an Ada compiler for training purposes
-->or who just wants to find out what this A-D-A language is all about,
--					 ^^^^^^
--Sadly, I still get those kind of questions from people (CS types, no
--less!).
Me too. Some of 'em are in the government.
  
--Well, to my intended point:  I am aware of a company (name escapes
--me -- they made a big impression) that was marketing a CASE tool
--called Ada_Z...have they changed their name, gone out of business,
--or can't afford an ambulance-chaser to sue Meridian? :-)

Hmmm. The company is TASC, and indeed they sued Meridian. (They had made
such a big splash that Meridian didn't know the name had been taken!) 
Meridian is apparently changing the name in some way to satisfy TASC.
Stay tuned for the name change. Meridian has been trying to get people
to say "Open Ada" recently, like at Tri-Ada.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Prof. Michael Feldman
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
The George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052
202-994-5253
mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu
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