Re: Embedded Tools

[Jerry Petrey <"jdpetrey<NOSPAM>"@raytheon.com>]

Carroll-Tech wrote:

>
> Well, I bought some robotics books (on sale for 1.00$).  In it they use a
> 16f84 Microcontroller.  That is an "embedded" technology right?
>
> Then it dawned on me that I've seen many, many job openings
> for embedded programmers using Ada.  And that tells me that
> Ada is the "native" language for "some" processor and that there
> is a compiler and libraries/package specs and implementation that might
> help me answer other questions.
>
> So, I guess, for comparative reasons and having the books I bought the
> target is a 16f84 microcontroller.  I just want to look in the specs and
> implementation of the libraries to program embedded "things" with Ada.
>
> Thanks!

Ada is a high-level language.  It is not the 'native language' (aka machine
language) for any particular processor.
There has to be a compiler that translates the high level Ada statements into
the machine code of a given processor. Unfortunately, there is not such a
compiler for most of the common 8-bit and 16-bit microprocessors or
microcontrollers such as the PIC 16F84.  There are compilers for processors
such as the 80486, 60040, PowerPC, etc. and host compilers for Windows
machines.  It would be nice if there were more cross-compilers (one that runs
on a machine like a PC and generates code for some other processor) for some
of these smaller microcontrollers but so far that is not the case.


Jerry
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