Free Ada83 compiler for older Solaris/SPARC or IRIX?

Free Ada83 compiler for older Solaris/SPARC or IRIX?

[Erik Baigar]

Hi,

does anyone out there know/have an older Ada83 compiler 
which runs on SPARC/Solaris (e.g. 2.6) or SGI/IRIX(6.5)
which he is able/willing to share?

I have a piece of Ada code I want to make run on these 
toys. Of course I know of gnat, but dislike the task 
of compiling gcc with gnat/ada-support on these 
platforms. Would be great if the compiler does
support some form of plot/draw command for graphics 
output (AdaEd which I succesfully compiled for IRIX
does unfortunately not).

Sorry for my silly question and best regards,

    Erik.

Re: Free Ada83 compiler for older Solaris/SPARC or IRIX?

[Ludovic Brenta]

Erik Baigar writes:
> Hi,
>
> does anyone out there know/have an older Ada83 compiler which runs
> on SPARC/Solaris (e.g. 2.6) or SGI/IRIX(6.5) which he is
> able/willing to share?
>
> I have a piece of Ada code I want to make run on these toys. Of
> course I know of gnat, but dislike the task of compiling gcc with
> gnat/ada-support on these platforms. Would be great if the compiler
> does support some form of plot/draw command for graphics output
> (AdaEd which I succesfully compiled for IRIX does unfortunately
> not).

Look at Blatstwave and, failing that, GNAT 3.15p on
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ada_Programming/Installing

As for the graphics output, I'm afraid you'll have to roll your own as
I don't know of such a thing in Ada 83.

One alternative would be to consider replacing IRIX and Solaris with
Debian GNU/Linux on both your boxes.  You will get not only GNAT but
also GtkAda, all prebuilt and ready to go.  Then you'd have to convert
your old program to Ada 95 but that's probably not going to be very
difficult.

HTH

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.

Re: Free Ada83 compiler for older Solaris/SPARC or IRIX?

[Erik Baigar]

Ludovic Brenta wrote:
> 
> Look at Blatstwave and, failing that, GNAT 3.15p on
> http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ada_Programming/Installing
> 
OK, blastwave looks worth a try. Thanks for this hint.

> I don't know of such a thing in Ada 83.
Yes sorry, this is my fault. The piece of Ada code, I want 
to use was originally compiled using Meridian Ada which 
had a binding for VGA graphics supporting line drawing 
commands and so on.

> One alternative would be to consider replacing IRIX and Solaris with
> Debian GNU/Linux on both your boxes. 
I do not really want to do this step since over the years I 
compiled and installed hundrets of useful programs on 
these boxes I do not want to miss. Using linux, the way would 
be to get a cheap notebook on eBay and use this...

My hope was that someone out there has an old (maybe 
originally commercial but now discontinued and free)
compiler to share. I already asked at Aonix and
they claimed that it would be too much work to find the
QIC tapes for the old ActiveAda distrubution  :-(

> also GtkAda, all prebuilt and ready to go.  Then you'd have to convert
> your old program to Ada 95 but that's probably not going to be very
> difficult.
The program is about 1000 lines long, so it seems to 
be not too much work to adapt it to Ada95...

   Thanks,

      Erik.

Re: Free Ada83 compiler for older Solaris/SPARC or IRIX?

[Randy Brukardt]

"Erik Baigar" <erik@baigar.de> wrote in message
news:47BD1A19.1A0523A4@baigar.de...
> Ludovic Brenta wrote:
...
> > I don't know of such a thing in Ada 83.
> Yes sorry, this is my fault. The piece of Ada code, I want
> to use was originally compiled using Meridian Ada which
> had a binding for VGA graphics supporting line drawing
> commands and so on.

Word of warning: the Meridian compiler was notoriously bad at enforcing the
rules of the Ada language. It was not unusual for a program compiled with it
to have major issues when it was ported to another Ada compiler. (We used to
have many support calls about that, which required me to explain to people
that things like
    for I in (1..10) loop
is not legal Ada syntax.)

                                            Randy.

Re: Free Ada83 compiler for older Solaris/SPARC or IRIX?

[Randy Brukardt]

"Erik Baigar" <erik@baigar.de> wrote in message
news:47BD1A19.1A0523A4@baigar.de...
> Ludovic Brenta wrote:
...
> > I don't know of such a thing in Ada 83.
> Yes sorry, this is my fault. The piece of Ada code, I want
> to use was originally compiled using Meridian Ada which
> had a binding for VGA graphics supporting line drawing
> commands and so on.

Word of warning: the Meridian compiler was notoriously bad at enforcing the
rules of the Ada language. It was not unusual for a program compiled with it
to have major issues when it was ported to another Ada compiler. (We used to
have many support calls about that, which required me to explain to people
that things like
    for I in (1..10) loop
is not legal Ada syntax.)

                                            Randy.

Re: Free Ada83 compiler for older Solaris/SPARC or IRIX?

[Randy Brukardt]

"Erik Baigar" <erik@baigar.de> wrote in message
news:47BD1A19.1A0523A4@baigar.de...
> Ludovic Brenta wrote:
...
> > I don't know of such a thing in Ada 83.
> Yes sorry, this is my fault. The piece of Ada code, I want
> to use was originally compiled using Meridian Ada which
> had a binding for VGA graphics supporting line drawing
> commands and so on.

Word of warning: the Meridian compiler was notoriously bad at enforcing the
rules of the Ada language. It was not unusual for a program compiled with it
to have major issues when it was ported to another Ada compiler. (We used to
have many support calls about that, which required me to explain to people
that things like
    for I in (1..10) loop
is not legal Ada syntax.)

                                            Randy.

Re: Free Ada83 compiler for older Solaris/SPARC or IRIX?

[Jeffrey R. Carter]

Erik Baigar wrote:
> 
> I have a piece of Ada code I want to make run on these 
> toys. Of course I know of gnat, but dislike the task 
> of compiling gcc with gnat/ada-support on these 
> platforms. Would be great if the compiler does
> support some form of plot/draw command for graphics 
> output (AdaEd which I succesfully compiled for IRIX
> does unfortunately not).

No compiler supports plot/draw; that's not part of the language. You need a 
graphics library for that.

-- 
Jeff Carter
"English bed-wetting types."
Monty Python & the Holy Grail
15

Re: Free Ada83 compiler for older Solaris/SPARC or IRIX?

[Erik Baigar]

"Jeffrey R. Carter" wrote:
> > output (AdaEd which I succesfully compiled for IRIX
> > does unfortunately not).
> 
> No compiler supports plot/draw; that's not part of the language. You need a
> graphics library for that.
>
Thanks for this hint - I understand that I need something like 
AdaGTK to do graphics. Is there such a graphics binding which
supports X11 based graphics in AdaEd?

BTW: I placed a binary distrubution of AdaEd 1.12 (New York University)
for the SGI/IRIX platform onto my webpage: 

    http://www.baigar.de/irix/AdaEd-1.12.tardist.

It is tested to run on Indigo and Octane with OS rev. IRIX6.5.22. 

   Erik.

Re: Free Ada83 compiler for older Solaris/SPARC or IRIX?

[Erik Baigar]

"Jeffrey R. Carter" wrote:
> No compiler supports plot/draw; that's not part of the language. You need a
> graphics library for that.

I have not looked into the different possibilities in detail 
now, but what would be the easiest way if I only want to get
a window and draw lines within this window? I.e. the only
thing I need is a command like "draw.line(x1, y1, x2, y2);"?

X11ada? , Motif/X-Binding?, AdaGTK?

   Thanks and best regards,

      Erik.

Re: Free Ada83 compiler for older Solaris/SPARC or IRIX?

[Jeffrey Creem]

Erik Baigar wrote:
> "Jeffrey R. Carter" wrote:
>> No compiler supports plot/draw; that's not part of the language. You need a
>> graphics library for that.
> 
> I have not looked into the different possibilities in detail 
> now, but what would be the easiest way if I only want to get
> a window and draw lines within this window? I.e. the only
> thing I need is a command like "draw.line(x1, y1, x2, y2);"?
> 
> X11ada? , Motif/X-Binding?, AdaGTK?
> 
>    Thanks and best regards,
> 
>       Erik.

GtkAda.

x11ada is very low level and means you will be spending a lot of time 
dealing with expose events.

Motif is a higher level toolkit and not a terrible choice.

GtkAda binds to a somewhat more modern library and 'works' under windows 
as well.

Under Linux/Solaris/unix like machines where it is supported it is very 
good. The downside will be that for older Solaris and probably for IRIX 
you will almost certainly have to compile your own Gtk libraries (not 
just the Ada part -- the libraries themselves).

While this can be done (At least for Solaris) and is not too hard if you 
know what you are doing, it can be a big deal.

If you are lucky,  you will be able to find pre-compiled libraries for a 
Gtk version compatible with GtkAda.

If you have the money, getting GtkAda from AdaCore means you will also 
get the pre-compiled Gtk libraries.

If you have more time than money, I suspect you can pull this all 
together yourself.

Re: Free Ada83 compiler for older Solaris/SPARC or IRIX?

[Erik Baigar]

Jeffrey Creem wrote:
> 
> Erik Baigar wrote:
> > now, but what would be the easiest way if I only want to get
> > a window and draw lines within this window? I.e. the only
> > thing I need is a command like "draw.line(x1, y1, x2, y2);"?
> 
> GtkAda.
> 
I am  currently trying to compile this one...

> x11ada is very low level and means you will be spending a lot of time
> dealing with expose events.
I know since I wrote plain xlib programs years ago.


> Motif is a higher level toolkit and not a terrible choice.
...and reasonable fast even on older machines...

 
> GtkAda binds to a somewhat more modern library and 'works' under windows
> as well.
That is the reason why I do not like this way very much: Code where a 
major part of development is done for the Windows operating system 
is usually not easy to compile on UNIX machines: Poor makefiles, HUGE
amount of dependencies, often not easy to have two different versions
of a library on a system due to the use of identical file names
for both versions (common "newer DLL replaced older one" on Windows
PCs).
 
> Under Linux/Solaris/unix like machines where it is supported it is very
> good. 
gtk-1.0 is OK regarding speed, but recently I recomiled a program 
with 2.2 and now it runs at 30% the speed of version gtk-1.2. Anyhow
GtkAda-1.2.12 is based on 1.2, so I will give this one a try...

> The downside will be that for older Solaris and probably for IRIX
> you will almost certainly have to compile your own Gtk libraries (not
> just the Ada part -- the libraries themselves).
I know, just started this journey with libart_lgpl-1.2...

...will post the end of the story in the future,

    ...thanks so far,

         Erik.

Re: Free Ada83 compiler for older Solaris/SPARC or IRIX?

[Erik Baigar]

Erik Baigar wrote:
> 
> ...will post the end of the story in the future,
> 
...compile complete and the testgtk works quite well.
   If someone out there is interested in a complete 
   tar of the binaries (install tree /opt/gnu/gnat), 
   please let me know...

> Jeffrey Creem wrote:
> >
> > Erik Baigar wrote:
> > > now, but what would be the easiest way if I only want to get
> > > a window and draw lines within this window? I.e. the only
> > > thing I need is a command like "draw.line(x1, y1, x2, y2);"?
> >
> > GtkAda.
> >
Which widget do you suggest to use if I want to get a window and
plot dots and lines therein? plot or better via OpenGL?

   Thanks and best regards,

      Erik.

Re: Free Ada83 compiler for older Solaris/SPARC or IRIX?

[Jeffrey Creem]

Erik Baigar wrote:
> Jeffrey Creem wrote:

>> GtkAda binds to a somewhat more modern library and 'works' under windows
>> as well.
> That is the reason why I do not like this way very much: Code where a 
> major part of development is done for the Windows operating system 
> is usually not easy to compile on UNIX machines: Poor makefiles, HUGE
> amount of dependencies, often not easy to have two different versions
> of a library on a system due to the use of identical file names
> for both versions (common "newer DLL replaced older one" on Windows
> PCs).
>  

I would not let the Windows baggage bother you here. Gtk+ was written 
for Unix like systems and is primarily maintained for Unix like systems 
with Windows support clearly lagging. The makefiles are very typical for 
large 'auto' tools style makefiles. Still, the dependency tree is pretty 
large and has grown over the years but that is more a reflection on the 
fact that it has now gotten a fairly full feature set for what people 
expect in a toolkit these days.


>> Under Linux/Solaris/unix like machines where it is supported it is very
>> good. 
> gtk-1.0 is OK regarding speed, but recently I recomiled a program 
> with 2.2 and now it runs at 30% the speed of version gtk-1.2. Anyhow
> GtkAda-1.2.12 is based on 1.2, so I will give this one a try...
> 
>> The downside will be that for older Solaris and probably for IRIX
>> you will almost certainly have to compile your own Gtk libraries (not
>> just the Ada part -- the libraries themselves).
> I know, just started this journey with libart_lgpl-1.2...
> 
> ...will post the end of the story in the future,
> 
>     ...thanks so far,


Please do. It will be nice to hear what you decide.

Re: Free Ada83 compiler for older Solaris/SPARC or IRIX?

[Erik Baigar]

Jeffrey Creem wrote:
> 
> Erik Baigar wrote:
> > ...will post the end of the story in the future,
> >
> >     ...thanks so far,
> 
> Please do. It will be nice to hear what you decide.

...the program is running now on Solaris/SPARC and (only
from curiosity) on WinXP/Intel using gnat3.15 and GtkAda
1.2.13. The IRIX platform is still in progress but I do 
not expect a major problem.
Graphics works OK using the GtkAda but I had severe trouble 
with the system.bit_ops, see seperate posting...

Thanks for all answers to my question,

   best regards,

      Erik.

Re: Free Ada83 compiler for older Solaris/SPARC or IRIX?

[Erik Baigar]

Jeffrey Creem wrote:
> 
> Under Linux/Solaris/unix like machines where it is supported it is very
> good. The downside will be that for older Solaris and probably for IRIX
> you will almost certainly have to compile your own Gtk libraries (not
> just the Ada part -- the libraries 
Under IRIX it should be possible, too. Gtk-1.2.10 is readily available
and
libart_lgpl compiles quite flawless here. So I am waiting for my SGI 
development CD containing the gnat for IRIX to give this a try for the 
IRIX platform...

  Thanks for the tips,

     best regards,

        Erik.

Re: Free Ada83 compiler for older Solaris/SPARC or IRIX?

[Vadim Godunko]

On 27 фев, 09:55, Erik Baigar <e...@baigar.de> wrote:
> "Jeffrey R. Carter" wrote:
> > No compiler supports plot/draw; that's not part of the language. You need a
> > graphics library for that.
>
> I have not looked into the different possibilities in detail
> now, but what would be the easiest way if I only want to get
> a window and draw lines within this window? I.e. the only
> thing I need is a command like "draw.line(x1, y1, x2, y2);"?
>
> X11ada? , Motif/X-Binding?, AdaGTK?
>
If you have GNAT GPL 2007 or able to bootstrap GCC/GNAT 4.3.0 on your
machine you may try to use QtAda.

Qt installation is significantly simple when installation of the Gtk+
and all its dependences.

Latest Qt version has support for both SPARC/Solaris 2.6 and SGI/IRIX
6.5.

Re: Free Ada83 compiler for older Solaris/SPARC or IRIX?

[anon]

You can use any version of GNAT Ada that works on SPARC/Solaris 
and add the command line option "-gnat83". Also you can insert the 
"pragma  Ada_83 ;" in the source code. But most of the true Ada 
83 only compilers are not available for download any more.

As for the "plot/draw commands for graphics". For the most part,
you will have to write them. Because the free Ada compiler only 
have the standard Ada libraries define in the LRM.  But you 
might check on Adapower.com, they have some sample programs 
that might have what your looking for.


In <47BC8252.84C89825@baigar.de>, Erik Baigar <erik@baigar.de> writes:
>
>Hi,
>
>does anyone out there know/have an older Ada83 compiler 
>which runs on SPARC/Solaris (e.g. 2.6) or SGI/IRIX(6.5)
>which he is able/willing to share?
>
>I have a piece of Ada code I want to make run on these 
>toys. Of course I know of gnat, but dislike the task 
>of compiling gcc with gnat/ada-support on these 
>platforms. Would be great if the compiler does
>support some form of plot/draw command for graphics 
>output (AdaEd which I succesfully compiled for IRIX
>does unfortunately not).
>
>Sorry for my silly question and best regards,
>
>    Erik.

Re: Free Ada83 compiler for older Solaris/SPARC or IRIX?

[Charles Lindsey]

In <47BC8252.84C89825@baigar.de> Erik Baigar <erik@baigar.de> writes:

>Hi,

>does anyone out there know/have an older Ada83 compiler 
>which runs on SPARC/Solaris (e.g. 2.6) or SGI/IRIX(6.5)
>which he is able/willing to share?

>I have a piece of Ada code I want to make run on these 
>toys. Of course I know of gnat, but dislike the task 
>of compiling gcc with gnat/ada-support on these 
>platforms. Would be great if the compiler does
>support some form of plot/draw command for graphics 
>output (AdaEd which I succesfully compiled for IRIX
>does unfortunately not).

There is the original interpreted version of Ada 83 written at New York
University, which may still be available from there. If not, I have a copy
which I still use for one application that I wrote.

OTOH, you would need to write your own interface to any graphics libraries
you might need. It is not too hard so long as you do not get
over-ambitious.

-- 
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
Tel: +44 161 436 6131 Fax: +44 161 436 6133   Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl
Email: chl@clerew.man.ac.uk      Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave, CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K.
PGP: 2C15F1A9      Fingerprint: 73 6D C2 51 93 A0 01 E7 65 E8 64 7E 14 A4 AB A5

Re: Free Ada83 compiler for older Solaris/SPARC or IRIX?

[Erik Baigar]

Erik Baigar wrote:
> does anyone out there know/have an older Ada83 compiler
> which runs on SPARC/Solaris (e.g. 2.6) or SGI/IRIX(6.5)
> which he is able/willing to share?

Thanks for all the hints. Now I am quite sure, that gnat
is the way to go. Porting the program should be easy. 
I already located a binary distribution for the Sparc 
platform: gnat-3.13p-sparc-sun-solaris2.5.1-bin.tar.gz.

From SGI there exists an Ada95 Development System, which is 
based on gnat 3.14 suite and thus is GPL, too. Does anyone 
out there have media for this (i.e. for gnat_dev 
1.4 for IRIX6.5, approx. 160MB)? 

Is anyone out there using this and does it require a 
valid lecense of the MIPS-Pro compiler to work?

Thanks and best regards,

   Erik.


P.S. For more information please see the SGI homepage at 

http://techpubs.sgi.com/library/tpl/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?coll=0650&db=relnotes&fname=/usr/relnotes/gnat_dev

Re: Free Ada83 compiler for older Solaris/SPARC or IRIX?

[Jeffrey R. Carter]

Erik Baigar wrote:
> 
> Thanks for all the hints. Now I am quite sure, that gnat
> is the way to go. Porting the program should be easy. 
> I already located a binary distribution for the Sparc 
> platform: gnat-3.13p-sparc-sun-solaris2.5.1-bin.tar.gz.

GNAT 3.15p is available for Solaris, and probably a better choice than 3.13p:

ftp://ftp.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/pub/Ada-Belgium/mirrors/gnu-ada/3.15p/

-- 
Jeff Carter
"My mind is aglow with whirling, transient nodes of
thought, careening through a cosmic vapor of invention."
Blazing Saddles
85

Re: Free Ada83 compiler for older Solaris/SPARC or IRIX?

[Erik Baigar]

"Jeffrey R. Carter" wrote:
> 
> 
> GNAT 3.15p is available for Solaris, and probably a better choice than 3.13p:
> 
> ftp://ftp.cs.kuleuven.ac.be/pub/Ada-Belgium/mirrors/gnu-ada/3.15p/
> 
...thanks for this tip - installed very easy! One only has to take into
   account, that there are two gcc after installation and one has
   to change the PATH variable depending on what is to be compiled...

   Erik.

Re: Free Ada83 compiler for older Solaris/SPARC or IRIX?

[Ivan Levashew]

Erik Baigar wrote:

> does anyone out there know/have an older Ada83 compiler 
> which runs on SPARC/Solaris

http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/coll/15.4