Re: Happy Birthday Ada

[Marin David Condic <nobody@noplace.com>]

Beyond pure nostalgia, I couldn't see much point. I don't have any 
software that requires a PDP-10 processor. I'd be curious about the 
logic of XKL in spending money to port to an architecture that is not 
likely to have much of a future in any commercial sense. Maybe there are 
still some PDP-10 users out there who still need some support, but it 
would seem that mostly they'd be looking for a migration path to some 
architecture with a future.

To get back on topic: This is a lesson for Ada. It is facing 
obsolescence and is hanging on to a user base that is for the most part 
looking for migration paths to something "new" with more "industry 
support". (This is what I'm hearing from my customers at least.) If Ada 
doesn't want to be a museum piece right next to the PDP-10, it needs to 
find a way of exciting and attracting *new* users and *new* projects on 
a mass scale.

MDC

healyzh@aracnet.com wrote:
> 
> GCC, not GNAT is being ported to TOPS-20, XKL is paying for the port to run
> on the XKL-1.  There are still real PDP-10's running on the Internet, and
> several emulated ones as well.  If you're interested in PDP-10 emulation,
> see my webpage at http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/pdp10emu.html, it also has
> plenty of links to info on the real HW.  As for how much of a userbase, I
> don't really know, but it is interesting to note that XKL is rumored to be
> working on an XKL-2.  For that matter there are a couple of Hobbyists
> building their own PDP-10 based systems out of FPGA's.  I gather some of the
> SC-20's and SC-30's are still in use as well.  All the genuine DEC CPU's and
> the Flooney's seem to have been retired.
> 


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Marin David Condic
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