From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.2 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID, REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,c78177ec2e61f4ac X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Jerry Petrey Subject: Re: ada and robots Date: 1997/06/09 Message-ID: <339C1ECF.431B@mlb.cca.rockwell.com>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 247263549 References: <97060510114032@psavax.pwfl.com> Organization: Rockwell Collins Avionics Reply-To: gdp@mlb.cca.rockwell.com Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1997-06-09T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Marin David Condic, 561.796.8997, M/S 731-93 wrote: > > Joe Gwinn writes: > >In practice, C was much more successful than Ada83 at riding metal. > >Experience with Ada83 shows that it is very bad at direct control of > >hardware, especially I/O hardware, and simply does not handle shared > >memory correctly. Ada95 is claimed to be better, but I don't have any > >direct experience with it. Actually, not many people do just yet. I > >suspect that most people are using C (perhaps called from Ada) for direct > >control of I/O hardware and the like. > > > Maybe with some of the early generation compilers, but we've been > "riding the metal" for years here in Ada and never had any trouble > getting direct control over the hardware. Oh sure, once in a while > you've got to dip into assembler to get at some real hardware > specific feature, but that's true of *any* language and at least > Ada specifies a way you can get at machine instructions without > leaving the compiler. > I agree. As I discussed in an "Embedded Systems Programming" article in Sept 95, I did all the low level hardware checkout and built-in test software for a gas turbine engine controller in Ada83 using the Rational VADScross compiler and found it to be quite easy at getting to "the metal". I did a lot of bit banging from Ada and used some machine code insertions to interface with some ROM based diagnostic routines on the CPU board to avoid having to re-invent them. Ada turned out to be an excellent choice for that project. I am currently working on a home project of controlling a mobile robot (with an embedded PC) using Ada. I only wish Ada was available for some of the smaller micros like the 68HC11 - for those I now prefer Forth. -- ===================================================================== == Jerry Petrey == == Consultant Software Engineer - Member Team Ada and Team Forth == == Rockwell Collins Commercial Avionics Group == == Melbourne, FL email: gdp@mlb.cca.rockwell.com == =====================================================================