Re: Omission in the Ada Standard

["Jeff C," <nolongersafeto@userealemailsniff.com>]

"Robert C. Leif" <rleif@rleif.com> wrote in message
news:657ea3e3.0309260810.4b6682d2@posting.google.com...
> I believe that other chips besides Intel's have ports. My suggestion
> would also work for systems with multiple memory banks. If Ada is to
> be used for real-time embedded systems, Ada compilers MUST work out of
> the box with major processors. Otherwise, normal engineers will go to
> some other language.
>

I don't think we disagree as much as you might think...I think that
any compiler for x86 designed for an OS that supports it should come
with predefined libraries to do port IO. I even wish it were relatively
standard..

Note again that no language I know of has the predefined ability to talk to
ports as
part of the language definition..

It is pretty easy to get GNAT to do it. I'll have to dust off my old wind 95
laptop since once I did some port
IO stuff on there but I never took it off before I put it away.





> Incidentally in order to program special boards, one needs to read
> from and write to ports under Windows. I might note after posting my
> message and several follow-ups, I have yet to receive any suggestions
> as to how to read and write to a port with GNAT.
> Bob Leif
>

Depends what version of Windows you mean. In general one can not execute
the various x86 port instructions on NT, 2000, XP series windows from user
space
code. Even if you get a compiler to generate the instruction, the OS will
trap it and raise an error.

So, the example code I hope to find will absolutely NOT work under NT, 2000,
XP.