Re: Interested about number crunching in Ada

[Gary Scott <garylscott@sbcglobal.net>]

Stuart wrote:
> "anon" <anon@anon.org> wrote in message 
> news:Qkrxi.438601$p47.325792@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
> 
>>First, I was talking about the close source Libraries that the
>>DOD CONTRACTED the DEC corporation to write in 77 - 78. Using
>>its PDP series computer.
>>
>>Also, I was only talking about before Ada 83 the previous
>>non-commerical versions. The first complete commercial Ada language
>>was in 83 but DEC had developed the Jean Ichbiah design a long time
>>before 83. And in 83 companies such as IBM, SUN, and even CII
>>Honeywell Bull  had to pay DEC for the source code of those close
>>source code libraries. The library source code will still be under
>>DEC control or its owners until around 2050.
>>
>>Ada was originally designed by a team led by Jean Ichbiah of CII
>>Honeywell Bull under contract to the US DOD in 77. But another DOD
>>department contract DEC to write the first Ada compiler in 77 - 78.
>>Some 5 to 6 years before Ada 83.
> 
> 
> This [the bit about DEC] seems to have been totally overlooked in the 
> 'history' recorded at the AdaPower web-site.  There the early development of 
> an Ada 'compiler' is associated with New York University (NYU) and the 
> Ada/Ed model (c1980).
> 
> Do you have any references for the role of DEC?  I am also unclear about 
> just what these 'libraries' actually are; could you elaborate some more 
> please?  There seems to be a scarcity of information about this - even on 
> the HP web-site (which still provides the supporting documentation for the 
> DEC Ada product).
> 
>   [This includes their annotated Ada Language Reference Manual, which seems
>    to be one of the few available electronic versions of the old Ada83 
> standard.]
> 
> 
>>As for the 'MIL-STD-1815' spec was created at the end of 1980.
>>But the design and first full language compiler was created in
>>77 - 78 more than two years before. So the 'MIL-STD-1815' was
>>not the first word only the first publish word.
> 
> 
> That is true (and I don't think I claimed otherwise); the main history of 
> Ada is quite readily available - this includes the roles of the 
> STRAWMAN-STEELMAN documents, the four competing development teams Green, 
> Red, Blue & Yellow.  All these documents were published for review.  (I 
> think it is possible to find a commentary on Green by Dijkstra online).
> 
One of the DEC compiler team members posts in comp.lang.fortran 
frequently (Steve Lionel).  You could probably post there or contact him 
directly, or via the intel fortran forum (Intel bought the bulk of the 
DEC compiler team).  He's repeatedly stated that Ada is his favorite 
language, so he's likely to be interested in contributed.

-- 

Gary Scott
mailto:garylscott@sbcglobal dot net

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