Re: Gnat cross-compiler for m68k, PowerPc

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

David Brown wrote in message ...

>Out of curiosity, is Ada practical for smaller chips?  We also use the
>msp430 (16-bit) and the avr (8-bit), both of which have gcc ports.  Is
it
>realistic to use Ada for these chips?  A serious RTOS like RTEMS is
>certainly out of the question here.

Ada is certainly practical on 16-bit chips. We still support our Ada 83
compiler on the 80186 and the like. The better question is whether you
can find a practical implementation for your target. I have no idea
whether GNAT would be practical on a 16-bit target, for instance (our
compilers were designed from the ground up for small targets).

It certainly is technically possible to use Ada on an 8-bit machine. Our
original compilers were for the 8080A/8085/Z80 family. But a compiler
for such a processor has to keep a tight grip on the size of the
runtime, and that can be fairly complex. (We partitioned the runtime so
that a program that didn't need any floating point operations, for
example, didn't need to include the math packages.)

We'd be happy to discuss 8 and 16-bit Ada compilers with anyone that's
interested. But, like Robert, we're not interested in doing something
just because somebody says it is a good idea...


              Randy Brukardt.