GW-Ada/Ed-DOS available free from WUSTL (long)

GW-Ada/Ed-DOS available free from WUSTL (long)

[Michael Feldman]

GW-Ada/Ed-DOS Exploratory Distribution 
June 1993

Prof. Michael B. Feldman
co-chair, ACM SIGAda Education Committee
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
The George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052
(202) 994-5253 (voice)
(202) 994-5296 (fax)
mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Internet)

We are happy to announce that GW-Ada/Ed is now available free of charge,
for anonymous ftp, from wuarchive.wustl.edu. (see sample session below.)
This note describes GW-Ada/Ed and other Ada/Ed distributions, and gives
some general information about Ada.

The GW-Ada/Ed distribution contains the executables for GWAda, which consists
of the NYU Ada/Ed translator/interpreter system for DOS, together with 
an integrated editor developed by Prof. Arthur Vargas Lopes of the 
Pontifical University at Porto Alegre, Brazil. Lopes began his work on
GWAda while he was a doctoral student at The George Washington University.

GWAda is being distributed for exploratory purposes; the integrated
environment will eventually be made freely distributable, complete
with source code, and distributed under the GNU Public License. Please
understand that we are not yet providing source code because this system
is still in the developmental stage and we wish to avoid horrible
version-proliferation complications. Source code for Ada/Ed itself is
also available from wuarchive. (see sample session below.)

You may in any case distribute this software as you see fit, for
educational purposes and not for profit. Include this document if you
redistribute the software, and give full credit to its originators.
We'd appreciate your sending an e-mail note to mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu
when you start using the system; information on the number of users
will help us to obtain and maintain funding for this project.

GWAda is distributed as two self-extracting archives created by LHA. 
Each archive will fit on a 1.44 mb high-density 3.5" diskette.

When you un-archive the files (see the instructions below), you will find
a readme.nyu file with documentation on the NYU part of the system.
Note that you do not have to use the GWAda integrated environment,
but can execute the various parts of Ada/Ed from the DOS command line,
as described in the NYU instructions.

System Requirements

   IBM PC Compatible, 386 or 486, running MS-DOS or PC-DOS
   at least 3.6 mb available extended memory
   at least 5   mb free hard disk space

Ada/Ed

Ada/Ed is a full-language Ada compiler, developed several years ago
by New York University, and released under the GNU General Public License
in 1992. The compiler does not produce machine language, but rather a
file of instructions for a virtual machine. This virtual machine is
simulated by a program called adaexec. In a sense, then, part of Ada/Ed
is an interpreter, but most of it is a compiler in every sense. Ada/Ed
was validated (tested by a government-sponsored set of tests) several
years ago. Validation means that the behavior of the translator corresponds
to that specified in the Ada Language Reference Manual, ANSI/MIL-STD 1815-A.
Minor deviations due to the virtual machine  are listed in the documentation.

GWAda

GWada is an integrated development environment, a "shell", around Ada/Ed-DOS.
The editor structure will be familiar to DOS users of such compilers as
the Borland "Turbo" family. Programs can be compiled, linked, and executed
with a keystroke or two from within the editor, for example.

Additional Libraries

We are providing a few additional libraries for you to work with. One
is John Dalbey's Spider Graphics; the other is an adaptation of the
Portable Ada Math Library. These are set up in separate subdirectories.
A third subdirectory contains a lot of interesting Ada programs supplied
by NYU as part of their distribution.

Help with the Ada Language Reference Manual

Part of the GWAda environment is a help system that assists in searching
the Ada Language Reference Manual. This hypertext-like navigational
aid is accessed from the Help menu in GWAda. If you have a mouse driver
installed, you can use it to select topics.

More Information about Ada

The newsgroup comp.lang.ada is usually filled with interesting technical,
political, and economic discussions about Ada. Also, the Ada Joint Program
Office maintains an anonymous ftp server at ajpo.sei.cmu.edu. Many 
interesting documents are available there, including FAQ files, machine-
readable versions of the language standard and surrounding documents,
and the like. And you will find hundreds of megabytes of Ada source code
and other materials in the directory languages/ada at wuarchive.

Attached is a sample ftp session from wuarchive, to show you which files to
obtain for GW-Ada/Ed and other Ada/Ed distributions.

Enjoy!

Mike Feldman

---- cut here ----

There are two subdirectories under languages/ada/adaed. the gwu directory has
GW's enhanced Ada/Ed-DOS and the Jacques Rouillard (Marseille)
experimental Ada/Ed-Macintosh. The README's in those directories
give more details. The nyu directory has all of NYU's latest files,
including source and executables for the (unenhanced) DOS version,
and generic gcc sources for Unix. Have fun!

ftp wuarchive.wustl.edu
Connected to wuarchive.wustl.edu.
220 wuarchive.wustl.edu FTP server (Version 2.1WU(2) Wed May 19 07:29:30 CDT 19
.
Name (wuarchive.wustl.edu:mfeldman): anonymous
331 Guest login ok, send your complete e-mail address as password.
Password:

Remote system type is UNIX.
Using binary mode to transfer files.
ftp> cd languages/ada/adaed
250 CWD command successful.
ftp> ls
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls.
total 4
drwxr-xr-x   4 20023    archive       512 Jun  5 15:14 gwu
drwxr-xr-x   2 20023    archive       512 Jun  5 12:39 nyu
226 Transfer complete.
ftp> cd gwu
250 CWD command successful.
ftp> ls
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls.
total 4
drwxr-xr-x   2 20023    archive       512 Jun  5 15:13 dos
drwxr-xr-x   2 20023    archive       512 Jun  5 15:13 mac
226 Transfer complete.
ftp> ls dos
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls.
total 1664
-rw-r--r--   1 20023    archive      7027 Jun  5 13:19 gwadaed.doc
-rw-r--r--   1 20023    archive   1338136 Jun  5 11:51 gwadaed1.exe
-rw-r--r--   1 20023    archive    332503 Jun  5 13:23 gwadaed2.exe
226 Transfer complete.
ftp> ls mac
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls.
total 856
-rw-r--r--   1 20023    archive    707840 Jun  5 08:26 adaed.sea
-rw-r--r--   1 20023    archive     23432 Jun  5 13:52 adaedmac.doc
-rw-r--r--   1 20023    archive    120704 Jun  5 08:26 nyudemos.sea
ftp> cd adaed
250 CWD command successful.
ftp> ls nyu
200 PORT command successful.
150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls.
total 5884
-rw-r--r--   1 20023    archive       923 Jun  3 12:49 README
-rw-r--r--   1 20023    archive      5589 Jun  3 12:49 README2
-rw-r--r--   1 20023    archive       171 Jun  3 14:00 README3
-rw-r--r--   1 20023    archive   3596288 Jun  3 12:49 adaed.tar
-rw-r--r--   1 20023    archive    997635 Jun  3 13:00 adaedexe.zoo
-rw-r--r--   1 20023    archive   1279174 Jun  3 13:16 adaedsrc.zoo
-rw-r--r--   1 20023    archive     14955 Jun  3 13:25 dasc.com
-rw-r--r--   1 20023    archive     21996 Jun  3 13:26 readme.pc
-rw-r--r--   1 20023    archive       923 Jun  3 13:26 unpack.doc
-rw-r--r--   1 20023    archive     67192 Jun  3 13:27 zoo.exe

Re: GW-Ada/Ed-DOS available free from WUSTL (long)

[enterpoop.mit.edu!Shiva.COM!world!srctran]

Kudos to Mike Feldman for his efforts with GW-Ada.

How about taking some of the money being wasted on other DoD Ada efforts,
and giving the money to Mike so he can go to software engineering and
object oriented trade shows and pass out diskettes with his GW-Ada system.
I mean, since the STARS people are too embarassed to publicly display any
of the beta-meta-Ada-stuff the DoD is giving them money for, while I am sure 
Mike is quite proud of his efforts, and would be glad to represent Ada
interests at such trade shows, it seems a much better return on investment
to give Mike the money.

P.S. sorry for the obscene phrase "return on investment"

-- 
**************************************************************************
 Greg Aharonian
 Source Translation & Optimization
 P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178

Re: GW-Ada/Ed-DOS available free from WUSTL (long)

[Michael Feldman]

In article <SRCTRAN.93Jun15163410@world.std.com> srctran@world.std.com (Gregory
 Aharonian) writes:
>
>Kudos to Mike Feldman for his efforts with GW-Ada.
Thanks! 
>
>How about taking some of the money being wasted on other DoD Ada efforts,
>and giving the money to Mike so he can go to software engineering and
>object oriented trade shows and pass out diskettes with his GW-Ada system.
>I mean, since the STARS people are too embarassed to publicly display any
>of the beta-meta-Ada-stuff the DoD is giving them money for, while I am sure 
>Mike is quite proud of his efforts, and would be glad to represent Ada
>interests at such trade shows, it seems a much better return on investment
>to give Mike the money.
>
Well, let me provide some more information. First, the core compiler, binder,
and virtual-machine interpreter making up Ada/Ed were done at NYU and
were originally funded by the government; recall that the SETL version of 
Ada/Ed was funded by the Army originally to demonstrate the implementability
of Ada83 (this was pre-83), and that this system received the very first 
validation certificate. The translation to C was done in the mid-80's 
(I don't recall how it was funded), validated in 1987 or so, and sat on 
the shelf for a few years, because NYU felt that it had been overtaken by
events (decent commercial compilers). 

With the recent speed and memory gains in PC's, and the very strong move to
Unix in the universities, and the advent of gcc, NYU was induced to clean up
Ada/Ed and release it with source code, in 1992 under GNU rules.

My contributions have been:

- distribute Ada/Ed DOS disks at SIGCSE 92, with Rich Pattis and
  SIGAda (NOT government) funding;

- supervise development of the environment at GW, first as a few course
  projects and some volunteer work by a few driven students;

- distribute Ada/Ed DOS and Mac diskettes at SIGCSE 93, again with Rich 
  and with SIGAda funding. 

The Mac port was done on volunteer time by Jacques Rouillard in Marseille. 
I helped test it (on my own time), but the port was essentially finished 
by the time Jacques told me about it.

I am currently supervising a two doctoral students and a postdoc to refine
and enhance the Ada/Ed "added value" on DOS and Mac platforms. This work is
now funded in part by a small contract from the US Air Force, under the 
supervision of Chris Anderson of the Ada9X office. Her office has taken over 
supervising the AJPO curriculum-development program, (sometimes called 
the BAA), which was originally supervised by DARPA (now ARPA). Got that?

I certainly appreciate the kudos from Greg, but hasten to point out that
this project is simply typical of the sort of thing that happens in a
university when source code to a system becomes available. It's nice for
students and faculty to get some funding from Uncle Sam to do something
like this, and in fact it would not have been possible without NYU's
original DoD funding. But much of the work was done on a volunteer basis,
as happens in the GNU world all the time.

Happily, Chris Anderson and company have come to understand this phenomenon
very well; the best evidence thereof is the Ada9X office funding GNAT.
Sometimes the government louses things up, but sometimes they get it right.
And universities sometimes get it right, too :-)

Stay tuned on GNAT and surroundings, folks.

Cheers -

Mike Feldman
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael B. Feldman -  co-chair, SIGAda Education Committee
Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
The George Washington University -  Washington, DC 20052 USA
202-994-5253 (voice) - 202-994-5296 (fax) - mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Internet)
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: GW-Ada/Ed-DOS available free from WUSTL (long)

[John Bollenbacher]

BTW, just to clarify: I agree completely with all of Greg's points except
the one about lifting the Ada Mandate.  It certainly does seem as if those
charged with the responsibility of expanding the use of the language (STARS
et al.) have dropped (and, possibly, buried) the ball.

Reasonable people can disagree about the advisability of the mandate.  I,
however (being unreasonable) will abstain from that particular debate.

--
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- John Bollenbacher                                        jhb@dale.cts.com -
- Titan Linkabit Corp.                                       (619) 552-9963 -
- 3033 Science Park Rd.                                                     -
- San Diego, Ca. 92121                                                      -
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