From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.5-pre1 (2020-06-20) on ip-172-31-74-118.ec2.internal X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.8 required=3.0 tests=BAYES_50 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.5-pre1 Date: Sun, 3 Nov 91 20:30:45 PST From: Sandy Wilbourn Subject: Meridian Mac compiler Message-ID: <9111040430.AA16700@meridian.com> List-Id: There have been a number of message on the net lately about how Meridian has orphaned its Mac compiler. (e.g. hasn't updated the environment library to all System 7 calls, isn't Think Pascal-like, etc.). As a person who has been involved in some of the decisions about the product, I thought I'd throw in my two cents. There are a number of reasons for our degree of commitment, mostly economic. First of all, Apple's Federal group has decided that A/UX is the system for bidding government projects so that discourages us from building a more sophisticated Mac O/S product. Secondly, we spent significant time building the current environment library, put some work into the code generator, and offered the Mac O/S product at a substantial discount with a fair number of takers, but it still sold roughly an order of magnitude less than our Open Ada DOS (although anyone could argue that the DOS product is more featureful). Thirdly, (a psychological reason) the Mac O/S market has been hostile to Ada in the past. A couple of years ago a representative of Meridian presented a talk about Meridian Ada at a Mac user conference and was loudly booed when he was introduced! Fourthly, we gave our technology away to a group(which will remain nameless) 3.5 years ago with the understanding that they would make the product more Mac-like, and we would sell it. However, the group lost its research funding. Notwithstanding all of the comments on the net, these other facts doesn't make Meridian want to invest scarce resources into such a product. Meridian wants to make OpenAda Mac better, but can't justify much extra effort based upon what we've seen in the market. However, if you believe there is a latent market for a better OpenAda on the Mac, and want to contribute to building a solution to this problem, you should contact me. For example, one solution might be for someone to build/extend the current ToolBox interface to System 7 in exchange for a royalty (or we would distribute it as free/share ware if that's what you want). Sandy Wilbourn Director of Development Meridian Software Systems, Inc. 10 Pasteur Street Irvine, CA 92718 srw@meridian.com 714-727-0700