Re: minimal hardware for ada (newbie)

[Tucker Taft <stt@averstar.com>]

Michael Viotto wrote:
> 
> Stumbling over Ada in a long thread in comp.arch.embedded I got
> interested in that language. I  have some very simple (?) questions.
> 
> Which is the minimal hardware requirement for running Ada on an
> embedded system? The "smallest" processor I found was a 386. Are 16-
> or even 8-bit processors supported, too? If so, what real time kernels
> can be used together with ada?

We have developed (and recently validated) a version of our
AdaMagic technology which uses optimized ANSI C as its intermediate 
representation.  One of the reasons was to allow a programming team to
write their source code in Ada, while relying only on the availability
of an ANSI C compiler for their chosen target.  We also have
a version of the Ada run-time that at the lowest level depends
only on routines included in the standard ANSI C run-time.

The Ada variable and subprogram names are preserved in the
generated C, and additional "#line" information is provided,
so that it is feasible to use a C debugger to debug at the
Ada source level using this technology.

So it is possible to run Ada on essentially any chip where
a C compiler exists.  However, if you use all of the features
of the run-time, you would probably run out of memory space,
so you would have to avoid features which require a lot of
run-time support (such as rendezvous, full Text_IO, etc.).

> Any hints are welcome!
> 
> Michael Viotto
> 
> Institut fuer Solare Energieversorgungstechnik (ISET) e.V.
> K�nigstor 59  34119 Kassel Tel: 0561/7294-219   Fax: -100
> m.viotto@iset.uni-kassel.de    www.iset.uni-kassel.de

-- 
-Tucker Taft   stt@averstar.com   http://www.averstar.com/~stt/
Technical Director, Distributed IT Solutions  (www.averstar.com/tools)
AverStar (formerly Intermetrics, Inc.)   Burlington, MA  USA