Re: Ada, the best language with the not-so-best tool chain

["Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com>]

"Brian Drummond" <brian@shapes.demon.co.uk> wrote in message 
news:k7il5s$gql$1@dont-email.me...
...
>> That's not quite true, in that there surely exists a Z80 toolchain
>> (early Janus/Ada) - it just hasn't been updated or supported in more
>> than a decade and it only runs on CP/M. I suppose it might run on some
>> emulator. (Another issue is that I don't think the binary exists on
>> anything other than 8" floppy disks, which might be hard to read today.)
>
> Depends how you parse "of these" - I did mean "of these latter" when I
> wrote it, having drooled over the Grey Matter catalogue in my younger
> days. If the source exists in any modern form, it can probably be
> compiled on a Z80-CP/M emulator. I would offer to help convert the
> floppies, but I abandoned a very nice CP/M system in a loft several house
> moves ago.

I did find part of the source on some ancient 5 1/4" floppies. One disk 
wasn't readable, unfortunately, and I had tossed the redundant backups in 
one of our previous moves (I had always keep two copies of every master 
floppy, but decided to save on space by getting rid of the extra ones). I 
did retrieve the backend and runtime library, and put those into our version 
control. I always figured it would make more sense to tie those to a modern 
front-end rather than try to get the 1985 version running, so they were my 
primary target anyway.

The 8" floppy versions probably are worthless; I still have one set of 8" 
floppy drives and our "best" Z-80 computer, but the last time I tried that I 
couldn't get it to boot -- probably corroded somewhere from sitting around 
in basements. And I'm sure its in worse shape now (10 or so years later).

I've got the compiler on various weird 5 1/4" formats (like the Apple II 
CP/M), but probably nothing that a PC could read. If there was enough 
interest, I dig out all of the disks that we have and see if I can read any 
of the binaries. Might have to find a CP/M floppy reading program (I expect 
it exists).

Anyway, if someone is seriously interested, they ought to contact me and I 
can try to figure out how much work it would be to get it to run and/or find 
the binary.

                                                      Randy.