Re: Using Ada for device drivers? (Was: the Ada mandate, and why it collapsed and died)

["John R. Strohm" <strohm@airmail.net>]

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"soft-eng" <softeng3456@netscape.net> wrote in message
news:9fa75d42.0305081222.623e0b31@posting.google.com...
> "Marin David Condic" <mcondic.auntie.spam@acm.org> wrote in message
news:<b9dij7$9ra$1@slb4.atl.mindspring.net>...
> > soft-eng <softeng3456@netscape.net> wrote in message
> > news:9fa75d42.0305070929.2d7a0d4c@posting.google.com...
> > >
> > > No doubt, but how do you think C became popular in the
> > > first place, overcoming the inertia (that was then) in favor
> > > of Fortran, Cobol, and Pascal?
> > >
> > Simple: AT&T practically gave away Unix to anybody that wanted it and it
> > came with a C compiler. Computer manufacturers didn't want to invent
their
> > own OS's and used Unix as a cost savings. Universities had freebie Unix
> > floating around on thousands of computers in their various labs. Hence
there
> > were millions of C compilers out there just native on a bunch of
machines.
> > What would someone with one of those machines use to write their
programs? A
> > Fortran compiler that they had to buy or the native C compiler that they
got
> > as a freebie with the machine?
> >
> > MDC
> > --
> > ======================================================================
> > Marin David Condic
> > I work for: http://www.belcan.com/
> > My project is: http://www.jsf.mil/
> >
> > Send Replies To: m c o n d i c @ a c m . o r g
> >
> >     "Going cold turkey isn't as delicious as it sounds."
> >         -- H. Simpson
> > ======================================================================
>
>
> Free compilers for other languages were available, too.
> And Unix was never the only OS around (in its range), there
> were OS's from DEC, DG etc.  Many of these were
> popular at unis.   And I could be mistaken, but I
> thought even Unix had an "f77" compiler included in
> the distribution, there was no need to buy it separately.

Yes, there were operating systems from DEC, DG, and others.  They all
carried prices greater than zero dollars.  Unix was fairly unique in that
the price was zero dollars.  This made it uniquely attractive to
universities.

At that time, as others have pointed out, C was the most practical choice of
programming language for doing systems and applications programming on Unix.