Re: Ada and embedded applications

["Marin David Condic" <marin.condic.auntie.spam@pacemicro.com>]

I wouldn't say that it is *impossible* to get an Ada program into 512 bytes
of memory, but you'd have to have a compiler that made it possible to build
code with no runtime (like GNORT) or you might find yourself dragging along
way too much other stuff. Technically speaking, I don't think this is a
*language* problem - more one of a *linkage* problem. There may be some
language issues such as this: I write a single procedure to run in my 512
bytes of memory. Will Ada demand that there be some kind of
elaboration/initialization/finalization that takes place such that I've got
to drag along more stuff than I need? Could a compiler be built (and would
it be *legal* Ada or a subset?) that was smart enough to detect that my
single procedure program required nothing but jumping to the starting
address and executing from there? I'd suspect thjat the answer is "Yes, but
it may require bending language rules and will certainly require you don't
use specific features."

Naturally, you couldn't use the whole of the Ada language in a setting like
that, which raises issues of validation. It may be possible to target Ada
for that sort of microcontroller, but it doesn't seem to be high on
anybody's priority list. Possibly it is viewed as a) too difficult to
accomplish in a reasonable span of time and b) too little interest on the
part of the folks who program these things to make it worth investing the
energy in it.

MDC
--
Marin David Condic
Senior Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology Americas    www.pacemicro.com
Enabling the digital revolution
e-Mail:    marin.condic@pacemicro.com
Web:      http://www.mcondic.com/


<tmoran@acm.org> wrote in message
news:akXS6.63509$%i7.48165181@news1.rdc1.sfba.home.com...
> >that may not offer much support for them. (Floating point? Context
switching
> >for tasks? Lots of things get to be a problem on small chips.) C, lacking
>   I used to regularly compile and run Ada 83 programs in 16 bit DOS on
> a 286, often generating a small memory model (64K) .com file.  But I grant
> that's gigantic compared to 512 bytes of RAM.