Re: GNAT R/T Annex and Win95

[dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)]

Marin said

"    Do you consider Windows NT capable of being a "realtime" operating
    system? (It doesn't seem to be advertised as such.... yet.)

    We'd like to build some of our data systems and ground support
    systems around Ada and NT, but we're not sure we can get the
    needed behavior out of it for a realtime system. (GNAT might even
    be usable here since most of this is "in house" development and
    not a contract deliverable. More leeway with what you do in this
    case.)"

First, of course Windows NT is capable of realtime operatoin. You need to
examine its specs closely, and probably stick to the realtime thread
priority group if you want Ada-style run-till-blocked absolute
priorities.

Second, GNAT is being used in many projects involving contract deliverables.
The Airfields project, one of the first, perhaps the first deployed
applications using Ada 95 was done using GNAT, and many other significant
projects inside and outside the DoD, including for example, the high
reliability medical equipment programs done by JEOL and the Aegis program,
are using GNAT, which was the first validated general purpose Ada 95
compiler, and is still the only Ada 95 techology that covers the full
language including all the annexes.

Now you might have meant "GNAT without support" might be usable here, in
which case that's a little more understandable, although personally I
would not use unsupported software even for internal development.

For more information on the NT version of GNAT, contact Tom Griest
at Labtek (labtek@cs.yale.edu). For more information on GNAT generally,
send email to info@gnat.com.

Robert Dewar
Ada Core Technologies