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From: eachus@spectre.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus)
Subject: Re: Ada and Automotive Industry
Date: 1996/12/11
Message-ID: <EACHUS.96Dec10202254@spectre.mitre.org>#1/1
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references: <55ea3g$m1j@newsbf02.news.aol.com> <3280DA96.15FB@hso.link.com>
organization: The Mitre Corp., Bedford, MA.
newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.realtime
Date: 1996-12-11T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


In article <586a40$tab@morse.satech.net.au> mvw@ozemail.com.au (Michael Warner) writes:

  > Well said. Most of the world micro market is price driven, and
  > it's a mixture of 4 and 8 bit. They don't get much press because
  > they're not exciting, but they enable engineers to bring
  > intelligence to many of the things we use - the PC is nothing in
  > comparative impact. You can do a great deal with an 8-bit micro,
  > but any kernel etc beyond a simple time scheduler is usually hard
  > to justify against its code space and speed impact.

    I think this is misunderstanding the discussion.  The 68HC11 family
is one for which an Ada compiler is a possibility and a good idea.
However, there are some chips well the other side of the technology
curve for which there will probably never be an Ada compiler.  The
discussion has focused on the 68HC11, among others, as a chip for
which an Ada compiler would make sense, but might not make economic
sense.

  > Some of you guys should go get a job designing micro systems for 
  > a consumer market before you spout nonsense about "technology curves".

    Some of us have, but others are in different roles.  I often get
asked either whether an Ada waiver will probably be granted, or to
even write the waiver request.  There are some embedded chips where
the decision is a no brainer, there are others where the response is a
list of validated compilers. ;-)

    And incidently, one factor that may crop up as a real result of
this discussion is that there are a couple of "on-the-edge" chips
where the right government response to a waiver request could be to
fund a compiler port.  It has happened several times in the past, and
may happen in the future.

--

					Robert I. Eachus

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