Re: Medical instruments don't use Ada

[<adaworks@sbcglobal.net>]

"Justin Gombos" <rpbkbq.xax.gld@uluv.kbq> wrote in message 
news:l2VWh.4409$0d2.1330@trndny02...
>A technical recruiter for the medical devices industry told me a few
> months ago he had never even heard of Ada.  He's been recruiting in
> the medical industry for 25 years.  He operates near the west coast of
> the U.S.  I was curious if you folks knew of any Ada driven medical
> devices - and in what country such development takes place.
>
I used to know a guy who had a small company specializing in the
creation of software for medical instruments on microcontrollers.
For the most part these were computers such as the I-8051, eight
bit micros that had very little primary memory, and did a small number
of functions.  In this environment, Ada may not be the best alternative.
In fact, this man, and his other programmers, used Assembler for most
of their programming.

For his group, C was not used much, and C++ was pretty much out of
the question.   Java was nowhere to be seen.

I have not been in contact with him for about twelve years, but I do know
that I-8501 and similar microcontrollers are still used in a lot of 
single-purpose
systems, including medical equipment.    They are really cheap to use in mass
produced equipment.

There was a correspondent in this forum about ten years ago who was
exploring the potential for Ada in those kinds of systems.  I don't think
he got very far.  Also, there are no compilers in place to support the
kinds of processors used in microcontroller medical systems.

Richard Riehle