Re: Help with embedded hardware/software platform selection for ADA

["Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On Wed, 03 Jul 2013 14:49:54 +0200, G.B. wrote:

> On 03.07.13 13:11, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
> 
>>> Another fashionable product, which is currently pricey, is
>>> LED light bulb control. Is an Arduino with ham radio attached
>>> to every bulb even reasonable?
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMX512
> 
> Cables, huh? 8-)

I would say yes. If you know how to light a bulb without electric power, I
am ready to invest everything I have into your startup! (:-))

>> http://cargocollective.com/christinametzler/Infografik-Landesgartenschau
> 
> Nice! Yet, W-DMX is what people may prefer in their living
> rooms, home-made or via meethue.com.

I would rather prefer something PoE-based (Power over Ethernet).

>> No us cycles needed to control LED lamps.
> 
> Fewer µs means more reason to not throw $$$ of PC hardware at small,
> frugal things.  But, austerity has never been associated with Ada,
> correct?

Well, I believe in standards and modular design.

Does Ada RM still have an example about positioning disk drive heads? The
main problem we faced was running LEDs a smooth ramp without blinking. It
required small latencies and a huge synchronous flow of data. It was a
gigantic waste of resources, just because the DMX controller had no command
"go from Color1 to Color2 in N seconds".

>> My point is either you have no run-time or else, full Ada, please.
> 
> Ada's runtime has been both extended and restricted over the years,
> via additions and language defined subsets, repsectively. Furthermore,
> taking optional Annexes into account, there is no one full Ada,
> practically speaking.

True. Let us talk about a "reasonable full Ada" then: tasks (with
identification), protected objects (with interrupt handlers), tagged types,
exceptions, floating and fixed point, Interfaces.C. Plus sockets.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de