Ada task management on PCs

[erickson@cs.nps.navy.mil (David Erickson)]

One of my students would like to write a multi-user database program for use on
some networked PCs.  The program would ensure that there is only one writer or 
multiple readers of a particular record at any time, and would spawn new tasks
to correspond with each networked user.  Record reads and writes would be
accomplished by task rendezvous between the networked user's tasks and the host
processor's task.

The student is doing this project as an independent study project, with the 
title "Advanced Ada".  It seems like a suitable project to me, but I am 
interested in suggestions, and wish to avoid running into system-level problems
late in the quarter.  We have at least one multi-tasking PC operating system in 
the department (Minix).  Will this support the networking?  If not, what OS
do you recommend.  The Ada we have available is Integrada.

Thanks for your help.


-Dave Erickson