Re: Omission in the Ada Standard

[rleif@rleif.com (Robert C. Leif)]

I believe that other chips besides Intel's have ports. My suggestion
would also work for systems with multiple memory banks. If Ada is to
be used for real-time embedded systems, Ada compilers MUST work out of
the box with major processors. Otherwise, normal engineers will go to
some other language.

Incidentally in order to program special boards, one needs to read
from and write to ports under Windows. I might note after posting my
message and several follow-ups, I have yet to receive any suggestions
as to how to read and write to a port with GNAT.
Bob Leif

Kilgallen@SpamCop.net (Larry Kilgallen) wrote in message news:<OOiLZwwgQEAY@eisner.encompasserve.org>...
> In article <mailman.3.1064517922.25614.comp.lang.ada@ada-france.org>, "Beard, Frank Randolph CIV" <frank.beard@navy.mil> writes:
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Larry Kilgallen
> > 
> >>> Robert C. Leif writes:
> >>> While I was working on my latest project, the CellFuge, I was shocked
> >>> to learn that Jerry van Dijk's Io_Ports package that I have did not
> >>> compile with GNAT. I do need an up to date version. Since the Intel
> >>> Pentium class of processors and their clones are a very large part of
> >>> the software market, the possibility of port based IO should be
> >>> included in Ada.
> >>
> >> And what would the meaning be on some other processor for which a
> >> standard-compliant Ada compiler is needed ?
> > 
> > I guess the same as GNAT.  Over half of the GNAT source I see, that
> > is of interest to me, won't compile on my Aonix compiler because of
> > some GNAT.Some_Package reference.  I have to go in and surgically
> > modify the code. Portability ends up moving from the language
> > to the tool.  So, "my GNAT code is portable so long as GNAT has been
> > ported to the new platform".  This has been an issue for a while and
> > no one seems to be too concerned.
> 
> But the suggestion here is that the Ada standard would be platform-specific.
> That is quite a different thing than an individual compiler.