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From: mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: First (?) mass-market PC software package written in Ada
Message-ID: <3347@sparko.gwu.edu>
Date: 21 Jun 91 16:11:23 GMT
Reply-To: mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman)
Organization: The George Washington University, Washington D.C.
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

Thought you might be interested in this. The June 1991 issue of Ada 
Strategies, one of those expensive newsletters, reports about a product you
might have seen advertised or discussed (I think in InfoWorld) called
AccessMac. This program allows - without extra hardware - an IBM PC
disk drive (3.5", of course), to format, read, and write disks in
Macintosh format (such capabilities have existed on the Mac side for
a while now).

The program, developed in the U.K., is written in Ada using the Janus
compiler. I will post the full story when the AdaStrategies publier sends
me an ASCII file of the text over the weekend.

I will, of course, add this to my list of nongovernmental Ada successes.
We can finally answer "yes" when folks ask whether Ada has been used to
develop any mass-market software, especially on IBM-PC or Mac equipment.
This is, I think, a first. I don't think it'll be the last, and hope
that the American software industry is not going to leave it entirely
to the Europeans.

A less-mass-market product developed in Ada is a PC-based CAD package
written in France. The name escapes me, but I will try to track it down.
Its developer describes it as AutoCAD-like.

Another interesting story is the one from Thomson-CSF, a French company
that builds air traffic control systems in Ada. The Copenhagen Airport
one is, I think, up and running, as is one in Kenya. The Netherlands and
Switzerland versions are under development. I'll post more details as I get
them. The bottom line is: if you're scared of Ada, don't fly into Europe in 
a few years.

(The American FAA is also building its new traffic-control system in Ada;
it just seems to be taking longer than the European ones. And IBM is the
prime contractor, not Thomson).

Mike Feldman