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=0.6 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,TO_NO_BRKTS_FROM_MSSP autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,cec20777e0d41ea0 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-02-21 15:00:03 PST Path: supernews.google.com!sn-xit-03!supernews.com!newsswitch.lcs.mit.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!cpk-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!cambridge1-snf1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!bos-service1.ext.raytheon.com!dfw-service2.ext.raytheon.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3A944780.C3077BC6@west.raytheon.com> From: Jerry Petrey <"jdpetrey"@west.raytheon.com> X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.76 [en]C-CCK-MCD CSC;Raytheon (WinNT; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Increased Interest In Ada? References: <3A82EFA2.C8756B09@acm.org> <970ma1$1l7$1@nh.pace.co.uk> <9719vr$8a2$1@nh.pace.co.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 15:56:00 -0700 NNTP-Posting-Host: 147.24.83.38 X-Complaints-To: news@ext.ray.com X-Trace: dfw-service2.ext.raytheon.com 982796322 147.24.83.38 (Wed, 21 Feb 2001 16:58:42 CST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 16:58:42 CST Organization: Raytheon Company Xref: supernews.google.com comp.lang.ada:5412 Date: 2001-02-21T15:56:00-07:00 List-Id: Marin David Condic wrote: > > It occurrs to me that much of the embedded programming experience could be > simulated in software. Obviously, you wouldn't get the "Real World" > experience of dealing with actual physical entities, but, for example, > actuators could be displayed on a screen and made to move much as they would > in the physical world. The software interface to such simulated sensors and > actuators wouldn't be quite the same thing as having to deal with actual > ports, memory addresses, etc., but it might be made close enough to be a > useful experience. Providing such a simulation in Ada would certainly be a > lot easier to achieve than finding an appropriate embedded target & compiler > port. > > Question: Given that a simulation like this would lack certain important > aspects of the embedded, realtime programming experience (having to somehow > work with a cross-compilation environment, dealing with linkage issues, > memory mapping, physical reality, etc.) might it still be useful as a > teaching tool? I think a simulation in conjunction with hardware would be > useful, but I'm wondering about finding a way around the problem of compiler > and hardware availability? > > MDC > > "Marin David Condic" wrote in > message news:970ma1$1l7$1@nh.pace.co.uk... > > I could imagine Ada being popular in electrical engineering departments if > > there were a convenient and inexpensive (maybe free?) Ada environment for > > playing around with embedded computing. It would have to work "off the > > shelf" with readily available hardware so that some prof could build a > > class/lab around it & students could afford to play with it on their own. > I > > am thinking of Dr. McCormick's model railroad class or the Lego robot > > discussed here a while ago. If either of these was packaged as "An > embedded > > programming course in a bag" so that a prof could just pick it up and > start > > teaching it, this might go a long way toward encouraging Ada as an > > educational tool as well as a practical tool for building real-world > > systems. > > > -- > Marin David Condic > Senior Software Engineer > Pace Micro Technology Americas www.pacemicro.com > Enabling the digital revolution > e-Mail: marin.condic@pacemicro.com > Web: http://www.mcondic.com/ Marin, from my experience, I have found that such an approach can be very useful. Years ago, I used to teach a course in embedded programming using Forth. My class project was modeled after one from Forth, Inc. (who I had worked for in the past). They used a small traffic light with road sensors and such so that you could move a toy car over them and activate the sensors. The students would then write the Forth code to implement the assigned behavior. In my class, I needed to travel to the location and I didn't want to take this kind of hardware with me so I build a PC simulator for the traffic light and sensors and then each student would run this on his PC and write the code to control it much like he would with the real hardware. When he would touch the road on the PC screen with the mouse it would register as a car passing and his code would then set the light sequence according to the required behavior (and display them on the screen). It seemed to be quite effective. Each student had his own little self contained environment in his PC to play around in and experiment with different algorithms without the need to connect to any special hardware. Of course, at some point they need to get the real hardware experience but this is a good way to start. Jerry -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Jerry Petrey -- Senior Principal Systems Engineer - Navigation, Guidance, & Control -- Raytheon Missile Systems - Member Team Ada & Team Forth -- NOTE: please remove in email address to reply -----------------------------------------------------------------------------