From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me
X-Spam-Level: 
X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID
	autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4
X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit
X-Google-Thread: 103376,c95a73ec6ed5f174
X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public
From: dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)
Subject: Re: Floating point problem
Date: 1997/03/28
Message-ID: <dewar.859561631@merv>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 229144627
References: <199703271518_MC2-1360-15BE@compuserve.com>
 <5hft5r$9sv@hetre.wanadoo.fr>
Organization: New York University
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1997-03-28T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


<<There is also the issue of LapTops. Mine is a 486SX, and I could use
it for GNAT until 3.05. I can't get it working with 3.07

And please Robert, don't tell me I should by a newer machine. My
laptop is sub-A4, weighs 1.6Kg, and can run 4 hours+ on a single
battery (when the battery is new, admitted ;-). I can't find any
modern machine that comes close to that.>>

First, of course there are machines with this kind of profile available.
Second I never said you should buy a newer machine, I said you should
buy a newer machine if you want to run GNAT! Not surprisingly, the
community that wants to run cheap old machines is not exactly the
community to look to to generate resources for enhancements that
will benefit such machines :-)

Everyone agrees that it would be nice if GNAT ran on machine X, for all
possible X, if they don't have to find the resources to make it happen :-)

I never said it was actively desirable for GNAT not to run on old SX
machines, or on embedded chips without fpt -- just that (a) it does
not support such machines, just as it does not support the transputer
and (b) we have no plans to do such a port -- just as we have no plans
to support the transputer.

If some volunteer wants to make GNAT work on coprocessor-less machines
using operating systems that do not support this transparently, that
would be nice. It would also be nice if a volunteer made a version of
GNAT for the transputer. Neither are high demand items (I did a poll
in my class last semester, no one had anything vaguely as out of 
date as a 486SX, indeed many had amazing machines), so that's why
they don't exist yet, but that does not mean it would not be a
good idea for them to exist!