Re: Fantastic Ada promotional piece from Rational (long)

[jmills@ccrf-news.gatech.edu (John M. Mills)]

In article <INFO-ADA%94090909593299@VM1.NODAK.EDU>,
 <CONDIC@PSAVAX.PWFL.COM> wrote:
>From: Marin David Condic, 407.796.8997, M/S 731-93
>Subject: Re: Fantastic Ada promotional piece from Rational (long)
 [...]
>On  Thu, 8 Sep 1994 11:52:53, Michael Feldman <mfeldman@SEAS.GWU.EDU> wrote:
>>
>>You just don't get it. Borland _really did_ create that TP juggernaut
>>in the universities. I was there, man, and you were not. Borland did
>>not give their stuff away; they just saw the futility of trying to
>>gouge us; we have the choice to walk away from ripoffs, and we voted
>>with our feet.

>I was there too. As I recall (correct me if I'm wrong) Turbo
>Pascal was introduced by Borland at a cost of $29.95 when every
>other company on the planet was selling compilers for $500 and
>up. The price quickly jumped to $39.95, but was *still* way below
>the competition.

Not quite my recollection (but my memory is always debatable).  I bought
JRT Pascal for cp/m when the price was dropped from c.$500 to $29.95.  The
package was a _dog_ however, and the price drop did two things:
  (1) exposed lots of users to the fragile compiler and doubtful math
      library, and
  (2) generated a demand for user support which then bankrupted the company.

Then went up, then down like a skyrocket. Chapter 11.  The package is now
public domain.  (In fairness, it had some good features, like automatic
loading and purging of modules when memory space was needed.)

Borland's product was not as high as $500 (I don't remember the price.),
but they then dropped to $99, I think, which is what I paid for v.3.0
for cp/m.  The IDE was a great step forward by the day's standards, and
Borland encouraged developers with their simple license agreements,
particularly _no_royalties_ on code compiled with their compiler.  I had
MS-DOS and cp/m versions 3.0, and was happy to have both.  When v.4.0
came out (MS-DOS only, I think), they also brought out a set of "toolboxes"
with complete source code and thorough manuals.  These were great for
inexperienced folks like me.  (There were some 3.0 toolboxes, too.)

This all looks primitive today, but it was a real improvement at the time,
and Borland was easy to deal with.  That was _well_before_ the deep-discount
and free site-license distributions of today.

Anyway, maybe someone can correct my memories.  They're probably lots better
than the "real thing" ever was.

>Ada *could* go out in the marketplace and successfully compete
>because it is an inherently good product. I think it's got some
>bad press to overcome, but with a "try it - you'll like it"
>approach, I think it can attract interest from even the most
>die-hard C/C++ programmers.

I think C benefitted from the "real pro" image associated with its
early users.  GNAT has the possibility of attracting some of the "roll
your own" crowd to Ada, and Ada may benefit from that visibility.  Personally,
I _like_ the GCC "build your own" approach.  Once I had bootstrapped GCC,
I had confidence the @#$!! could work.  (Maybe the "if it tastes bad, it's good
for you" effect in action.)  I might try a pre-built GNAT binary, but I would
rather build it in our own directory structure before turning it loose on the
home team.  (Obviously, I haven't done so yet, and don't know if the process
resembles building GCC and friends.)

Regards --jmm--

-- 
John M. Mills, SRE -- john.m.mills@gtri.gatech.edu -- (404)528-3258 (voice)
   Georgia Tech/ GTRI/ SDL, 7220 Richardson Rd., Smyrna, GA 30080
   "Well, I'm an Assistant Regurgitation Engineer --
     but I should make Senior R.E. next year" _The_Far_Side_, G. Larson