[Q] Is anyone programming DSPs in Ada?

[Q] Is anyone programming DSPs in Ada?

[skulski]

Hi all:

  I am looking for info on programming DSP processors in Ada.
In particular, I would like to know if anybody has considered
programming Analog Devices ADSP 2181 and/or similar chips.
If not, has anybody an idea what would it take to program these chips
in Ada?

I will appreciate an e-mail to skulski@nsrl.rochester.edu, 
or a posting to c.l.a, or both. Thank you in advance for information.

Wojtek
-- 
Wojtek Skulski, skulski@nsrl.rochester.edu
Nuclear Structure Research Lab, Univ. of Rochester
271 East River Rd, Rochester, NY 14627. 
phone (716) 275 2524  fax (716) 473 5384
World Wide Web: http://nuchem.nsrl.rochester.edu/~skulski

Re: [Q] Is anyone programming DSPs in Ada?

[Markus Kuhn]

skulski@nsvs33.nsrl.rochester.edu wrote:
>   I am looking for info on programming DSP processors in Ada.
> In particular, I would like to know if anybody has considered
> programming Analog Devices ADSP 2181 and/or similar chips.
> If not, has anybody an idea what would it take to program these chips
> in Ada?

Someone who developed an anti-tank missle in Germany told me that
they used 12 Analog Devices SHARC DSPs for the radar pattern recognicion
in the missle head, and they were programmed almost completely
in Ada using an (I think) Intermetrics compiler. They changed the
compiler provider once during the development cycle, and they were very
pleased with Ada's portability: The compiler change required only
one day of work, most of it spent with reading the manuals of the
new compiler. It also seems to be a big advantage of Ada on DSPs
(which is a niche market), that the ACVS ensures a quite consistently
high quality of the compilers, while the C compilers for the same
processors are often incompletely implemented with many unexpected
restrictions. The downside is that Ada compilers for DSPs are often
so expensive that only defense contractors can afford them
(80 000 DEM/year = 47 000 USD/year was one figure I remember
from this discussion for the cost of compiler plus support).

Another detail advantage of Ada over C on DSPs is the "for" command:
Its structure encourages a loop programming style that is easily
mapped by the compiler to the zero-overhead loop mechanisms that
most DSPs have (three registers for loop start/end address
and a counter, no conditional jump instructions).

Markus

-- 
Markus G. Kuhn, Security Group, Computer Lab, Cambridge University, UK
email: mkuhn at acm.org,  home page: <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/>

Cost of Ada Compilers (was[Q] Is anyone programming DSPs in Ada?)

[Mark D. McKinney]

Markus Kuhn wrote:
> The downside is that Ada compilers for DSPs are often
> so expensive that only defense contractors can afford them.

How come nobody caluclates Man-Hours when determining a language. Isn't
total cost the bottom line ? What about Quality?

Re: [Q] Is anyone programming DSPs in Ada?

[Tucker Taft]

Markus Kuhn (Markus.Kuhn@cl.cam.ac.uk) wrote:

: ...
: Someone who developed an anti-tank missle in Germany told me that
: they used 12 Analog Devices SHARC DSPs for the radar pattern recognicion
: in the missle head, and they were programmed almost completely
: in Ada using an (I think) Intermetrics compiler. 

Our SHARC AdaMagic compiler is not yet generally available, but will be 
in September of this year.  So this was probably someone else's compiler.

: ...
: Markus

: -- 
: Markus G. Kuhn, Security Group, Computer Lab, Cambridge University, UK
: email: mkuhn at acm.org,  home page: <http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/>

--
-Tucker Taft   stt@inmet.com   http://www.inmet.com/~stt/
Intermetrics, Inc.  Burlington, MA  USA

Re: [Q] Is anyone programming DSPs in Ada?

[Rakesh Malhotra]

skulski@nsvs33.nsrl.rochester.edu wrote:
> 
> Hi all:
> 
>   I am looking for info on programming DSP processors in Ada.
> In particular, I would like to know if anybody has considered
> programming Analog Devices ADSP 2181 and/or similar chips.
> If not, has anybody an idea what would it take to program these chips
> in Ada?
About 1 year ago TI bought out Tartan.  Tartan used to make Ada
compilers for DSPs (I think for the 320C30 and other TI DSPs).  Just a
couple of weeks ago they have licensed the full Tartan technology to
DDCI completely.   So you may want to talk to DDCI.

Also Intermetrics were supposed to implement an Ada compiler for the
Analog Devices SHARC chip.  Don't know what happened to it.

--
Rakesh

Re: [Q] Is anyone programming DSPs in Ada?

[John McCabe]

brianorpin@bigfoot.com (Brian Orpin) wrote:

>Who or what are DDCI?  as a current user of Tartan Ada on a DY4 quad 50
>Mz C40 board I am quite interested.

DDC-I are quite a major compiler vendor, especially in Ada. In the UK 
their products are distributed by First Matrix who are based in 
Marlborough (Wiltshire I think).

I used there DACS-NT product a while ago. I wasn't particularly impressed 
(but then again, I never have been by an Ada compiler) but it looked 
reasonable.

The person to speak to there (at the time) was Alan Barker. It should be 
easy for me to get hold of a phone number. If you want me to, let me 
know. Otherwise, it's worth searching for their site on the Internet. It 
used to be http://www.ddci.dk/ but it might have changed. They should 
however be listed in the validated compilers list at the Ada Information 
Clearinghouse.

Let me know if you want me to get their number.

-- 
Best Regards
John McCabe

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Re: [Q] Is anyone programming DSPs in Ada?

[Tucker Taft]

Rakesh Malhotra (rakesh.malhotra@safetran.com) wrote:

: ...
: Also Intermetrics were supposed to implement an Ada compiler for the
: Analog Devices SHARC chip.  Don't know what happened to it.

The SHARC AdaMagic compiler is now in "alpha;" beta is planned for August, 
product for September; contact Analog Devices (Lori.Berenson@analog.com) 
for availability.

: --
: Rakesh

--
-Tucker Taft   stt@inmet.com   http://www.inmet.com/~stt/
Intermetrics, Inc.  Burlington, MA  USA