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From: "David Brown" <david@no.westcontrol.spam.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Gnat cross-compiler for m68k, PowerPc
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2002 11:14:53 +0200
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Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:28543
Date: 2002-08-29T11:14:53+02:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>

I've been looking at Ada as an alternative language (to C/C++) for embedded
systems programming.  The two platforms I am most interested in are the m68k
(specifically, the 68332 chip with the CPU32 core) and PowerPc (MPC565).  At
the moment I use gcc for the 68332, and I expect to do the same for the
MPC565 when we start working with it.  I can see a number of benifits of
using Ada instead of C, but before I delve too deeply into learning it, I
hope someone can tell me if I'm going in the right direction.  Both these
chips have gcc ports, so am I right in thinking that it's just a matter of
the ada libraries, since gnat uses a target-independant front-end tied to
the gcc back-end ?  I'd be grateful for some pointers as to where to get
started on the tools - I will be using w2k as the main host (I'm quite happy
with building the compiler from source under cygwin - I've done it for other
gcc crosses) and hopefully Linux (if I can get hold of a second PC :-).  I'm
not expecting to use any OS on the systems -although it might be interesting
to try RTEMS, I'd also like to be able to build Ada programs that are not
dependant on any OS.

Out of curiosity, is Ada practical for smaller chips?  We also use the
msp430 (16-bit) and the avr (8-bit), both of which have gcc ports.  Is it
realistic to use Ada for these chips?  A serious RTOS like RTEMS is
certainly out of the question here.

Thanks.