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

[Simon Clubley <clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP>]

On 2012-03-07, Randy Brukardt <randy@rrsoftware.com> wrote:
> "Jacob Sparre Andersen" <sparre@nbi.dk> wrote in message 
> news:87d38ohf9g.fsf_-_@adaheads.sparre-andersen.dk...
>> 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 don't know. I can't remember how we ever could have found anything prior 
> to AltaVista. (I'm not going to give Google credit for something that they 
> didn't invent...:-).
>

Back in those days, there was still a viable marketplace for serious
computing magazines as well as the various game commodity level magazines.
Those serious magazines were a primary source of current trends and
information for me in those days.

My personal path to finding out about Janus/Ada in the same timeframe
(maybe even a year or two earlier) went something like:

1) Read one of those magazines on a monthly basis.
2) Notice a advert by someone called Grey Matter selling compilers.
3) Request their full price list.
4) Notice the cheap compilers including something called Janus/Ada.
5) Request detailed information on this new to me compiler.
6) Come close to buying it (but I never did; sorry Randy :-))

> Advertising was hit-or-miss. (And our budget was $0 by 1993.) Lists of 
> validated compilers and the like helped, but you had to know about the AdaIC 
> in order to get that information. Trade shows like SIGAda were a good place 
> to find out things, but you had to know about them. And so on...
>

Explaining this advertising world to someone under 20 is like explaining
what life was like, say, before television to those of us who have never
known a world without multiple television options. A non-Internet world
is totally foreign to them.

Simon.

-- 
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world