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=1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID, MSGID_RANDY,XPRIO autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,fcc4a22d6dda142f,start X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: Rakesh Malhotra Subject: Regarding Microtec Date: 1998/02/24 Message-ID: <6cuv9l$8vo$1@gte1.gte.net>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 328222190 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Organization: gte.net X-Auth: UNKNOWN@207.175.180.6 Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 1998-02-24T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: Dear Editor I read the article "Real-time software world raises reliability bar" (Feb 16,1998 - Terry Costlow) with interest. I work in the embedded, real-time, safety critical market and so the article applies to my work. One thing interesting (and disappointing to me) in the article is the lack of any mention of Ada at all. The article discusses safety and certified RTOS's. Well, a large number of safety critical systems are done in Ada and Ada includes tasking as part of its language definition. Hence an Ada compiler, as part of its run-time environment, also includes an "OS". And to the best of my knowledge the run-times sold by some Ada compiler vendors have been certified by the FAA for quite some time. In fact,in 1992 we used the Alsys Ada compiler (now Aonix) and they had a run-time called C-SMART (for Certified-Small Ada Runtime) which was FAA certified. Other Ada vendors may also have this certification (e.g. DDC-I). So, while Microtec getting FAA certification for their RTOS is certainly interesting, they are by no means first. Also some international standards (e.g. CENELEC ENV 50129) for safety systems recommend the use of Ada as opposed to C or other languages. Additionally, Ada is probably the only language that actually addresses safety as part of its language design - see Annex H in the Ada language reference manual. Hence, based on the above, I would have expected to have found some mention of Ada in the article. As an aside: I do not know if this is an EE Times policy but I do not normally find mention of Ada based projects in your pages. There is a lot of mention of C, C++, Embedded C++ and Java. Ada is certainly used in many non-trivial application areas, embedded and otherwise, including many applications where high reliabilty and quality is required. Please have a look at www.adahome.com for a list of applications that are done in Ada. Thankyou. -- Rakesh Malhotra. Stanley Allen wrote: >In EETimes this week (Feb 16, 1998) there is an article called >"Real-time software raises the reliability bar". This article >talks about Microtec's new RTOS which has received the FAA's >RTCA/DO-178B Level A certification for mission-critical >aerospace systems. >Does anyone know if there are Ada compilers for this >RTOS? I know that some Ada compilers and run-time systems >have achieved DO-178 cert. in the past. >Microtec is the company that either bought or used to be >Ready Systems, which developed the VRTX executive for >which there were Ada 83 compilers. -- Stanley Allen