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=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,583275b6950bf4e6 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2003-05-15 15:58:17 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!sn-xit-03!sn-xit-01!sn-post-01!supernews.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail From: achrist@easystreet.com Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Quality systems (Was: Using Ada for device drivers? (Was: the Ada mandate, and why it collapsed and died)) Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 16:00:46 -0700 Organization: Posted via Supernews, http://www.supernews.com Message-ID: <3EC41C1E.4F93343C@easystreet.com> X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.79 [en] (WinNT; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <9fa75d42.0305141747.5680c577@posting.google.com> <7GGwa.849701$F1.107635@sccrnsc04> <3EC3A45B.4A34A487@easystreet.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: abuse@supernews.com Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:37367 Date: 2003-05-15T16:00:46-07:00 List-Id: Vinzent Hoefler wrote: > > > I don't recall ever seeing an Ada product or tool that would > >run on an 8086 or 8088 without special hardware added. > > Seems you don't have a clue. > > >Were there any? > > The Meridian Ada83 compiler. > > Vinzent. > OK. The post to which I replied read "In the early days pf PCs". The early days of PC's (to me) were the period 1981-1985, when the first-generation 8088 was the typical machine. Was Meridian running on 8088 PC's at that time? Could it both raise and handle interrupts? Load registers? Call the BIOS? Address the DOS low memory? Compile to object code that other languages could use without a large run-time library (remember it took about 35kb to talk to the mouse under DOS, so many programs didn't bother to include any mouse support). TSR? I surely remember looking pretty hard for an Ada compiler for my PC in 1986 and not finding anything affordable. Maybe Ada on the PC was hard to find because Intel had developed the 432 as their chip to run Ada, but for whatever reason, Ada on the PC was not out there leading the way. Al Al