Re: Gnat Ada 9X - What sort of PC does it need???

[dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)]

Here is a more general idea of what hardware we recommend for running
the PC version of GNAT, using either OS/2 or DJPP:

Minimum:
  486 25 MHz
  200 meg hard drive
  8 megs of memory

such systems should be available with 14" color monitor in the $1250 range
or even cheaper if you settle for a no-name clone (but be sure to check
OS compatibility in this case, make sure you have a money back guarantee)
The $1250 is for a minstream machine (e.g. Compaq Presario 433, which is
actually a 33MHz machine, in fact you may as well go for a 33 MHz, really
they cost so little more today). Note that SZ or DX does not really affect
GNAT performance, since the compiler itself does not use floating-point.

Desirable:
  Pentium
  400 meg drive
  16 megs of memory

now you are in the $2000-$2500 range, although in the latest computer
shopper, there was a Pentium clone for less than $1500.

One of the nice things about the timing of GNAT is that the hardware that
you buy today has caught up nicely with the requirements of GCC/GNAT. A
couple of years ago, specs like the above would have seemed much too
luxurious, but these days, minimal student machines are likely to at
least match the "minimum" spec above (with the possible need to add
4 megs of memory).

Of course when compiling large programs or systems, more power will never
hurt. In particular, more memory is always helpful, and GNAT should be
able to take convenient advantage of the new symmetric multi processing
systems coming out (running OS/2 MP or NT with the soon to be available
GNAT port to NT/x86). THe lack of a required order of compilation is
particularly helpful when compiling large programs on an MP system.