Re: Early availability of cheap Ada compilers (Was: Re=Fun_with_History why_wasnt_Ada83_object_oriented)

[anon@att.net]

Note: It has been stated that's Adacores position is "We don't sell 
cheap Ada compilers".

One reason Ada sells were hurt in the beginning because of the attitude 
the world had of anything connected with the US DOD. Especially with the 
locks the DOD had upon Ada. 

Now back in the 1980s, America was still trying to get over Vietnam. So, 
a lot of people including professors did not talk about Ada or anything 
created by the DOD. Plus, people assume the purpose of Ada was government 
business only, so unless you were willing to work for the US for the next 
35 plus years, Ada was not worth learning. And back in the 1980s the last 
job a programmer wanted was to work for the military. Private sector was 
were a programmer could explore their boundaries of programming without 
the long arm of the government shutting them down.

Now, at the same time stores selling computer software were mostly selling 
games or simple business programs like accounting packages on 5 inch disks 
(360K) or 3.5 inch disks (720K). And BBS (pre-public internet) were little 
more than picture and forums sites with a few bin downloads. And at 1.2Kb 
for "Genie" and 300 baud for Compusrve (pre-AOL) with per minute rates, it 
was not worth spending the time to located and download the "Adaed" 
(NYU: Ada 83 for DOS) source file that may not even work on your system, 
and then you also had to have a C compiler or spend more time download one. 

As for colleges in the 1980s, most small colleges limited the use of the 
internet to research or remote classes, due to bandwidth cost.  Later in 
the early 1990s the usage was still limited to programming classes or 
research or and a few Pear-to-Pear Video classes. So, downloading GNAT 
from NYU in 1990s had to be related to an Ada programming class.

Now, GNAT was developed at NYU and FSU in 1992 for Sun and IBM OS/2 
workstation, then later they came out with a version for Windows. As 
for Linux in 1994 you could purchase a Linux CD set which included a 
pre-compile GNAT Ada version for a few dollars. But at the same time 
you could just purchase a Ada CD set, which contain a number of trial 
binary Ada's for MS-DOS, Sun, Linux, OS/2, and Windows at your local 
software shop.

But by the time Ada 95 was adopted the popularity of Ada started to slip 
and when the DOD drop it mandate in 1998 the slippage became a flood of 
programmers backing away from Ada and a lot of colleges halted teaching 
Ada. 

Then there is Microsoft which had never sold or support Ada, which 
means to masses as well as most schools, that Ada is just a historical 
reference of a failed attempt by the US DOD to create and use a single 
computer language for the entire US government.

As for those outside of America in the 1980s, they did not trust anything 
associate with the DOD. Plus with the DOD locks, only a limited number of 
vendors could sell Ada outside the US.


In <87d38ohf9g.fsf_-_@adaheads.sparre-andersen.dk>, Jacob Sparre Andersen <sparre@nbi.dk> writes:
>Randy Brukardt wrote:
>
>> Subset versions of Janus/Ada were introduced in 1981, and on the IBM
>> PC in 1982. There were other companies, too. All of these compilers
>> were competitively priced for the time (several hundred dollars) --
>> the dirt cheap compilers (in more ways than one) came later (including
>> versions of Janus/Ada for $99; indeed, that compiler is *still* in our
>> catelog at $129).
>
>Why was it that I couldn't find it in 1993, when I was actually looking
>for an Ada compiler?
>
>I suppose I wasn't looking in the right place.  But where was the right
>place to look back then?
>
>I think the compiler vendors (and the Ada community as a whole) are
>doing a much better job of making potential customers aware of the
>availability of Ada compilers now.  But is there something that can be
>improved?  (Assuming the same marketing budget.)
>
>Greetings,
>
>Jacob
>-- 
>"Sleep is just a cheap substitute for coffee"