ADA compiler on Mac?

ADA compiler on Mac?

[Yingwu Fang]

Dear Netters,

Does anyone know if there is an ADA compiler on Mac (system 7)
out there? 

Please reply by posting to this newsgroup or email to:
zhou@nyquist.ee.ualberta.ca

Your help is much appreciated! 

Re: ADA compiler on Mac?

[Arthur Evans Jr]

In article <Oct18.063909.104306@acs.ucalgary.ca>,
chinsch@acs.ucalgary.ca (Yingwu Fang) wrote:

> Does anyone know if there is an ADA compiler on Mac (system 7)? 

The only commercial product for the Mac is the one originally written
by Meridian.  Meridian later merged with Verdix, and the resulting
company later become part of Rational.

Rational provides adequate support for the product.  However, they have
yet to make a statement that they will upgrade the product to support
PowerPC or 9X.  I expect (hope) they will make such a statement next
month at TRI-Ada.  It's my belief that unless there is such a stated
intent to upgrade, the product is effectively dead (though it will hang
around for a while.)  Alsys once had a Mac product, but their decision
not to upgrade to System 7 effectively killed it.

Mike Feldman will surely respond shortly on Ada/Ed, a non-commericial
product of value in certain areas.

Eventually there will surely be a GNAT for the Mac, but I have heard
nothing about a schedule.

I require Ada for my consulting activities.  If Rational does not commit
at TRI-Ada to PowerPC, and 9X and nothing else happens, I will have no
choice but to buy another platform.

Any reader of this news group who needs an Ada compiler on the Mac would
do well to make that need known to Rational.  Write to them at
    product_info@rational.com
I did so some time ago.

Art Evans

Arthur Evans Jr, PhD        Phone: 412-963-0839
Ada Consulting              FAX:   412-963-0927
461 Fairview Road
Pittsburgh PA  15238-1933
evans@evans.pgh.pa.us

Re: ADA compiler on Mac?

[Michael Feldman]

In article <evans-181094095840@evans.pgh.pa.us>,
Arthur Evans Jr <evans@evans.pgh.pa.us> wrote:

>Mike Feldman will surely respond shortly on Ada/Ed, a non-commericial
>product of value in certain areas.

OK, OK. I e-mailed the guy, but here goes again: :-)


GW-Ada/Ed Program Development Environment for Apple Macintosh
-------------------------------------------------------------
May 1994 
--------

Prof. Michael B. Feldman 
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science 
The George Washington University Washington, DC 20052 
(202) 994-5919 (voice) 
(202) 994-5296 (fax) 
mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Internet)

We are happy to (re-)announce the first release of GW-Ada/Ed for the Apple
Macintosh family of computers. This software is now available by
anonymous ftp from wuarchive.wustl.edu, in the directory
languages/ada/compiler/adaed/gwu/mac.

The purpose of the reannouncement is to let you know that source code
is now available for the entire compiler and development environment.

This project was sponsored by The George Washington University, and in
part by the United States Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) under
contract #FY3592-93-10234, administered by Phillips Laboratory, Kirtland
AFB, NM 87117-5776. 

Copyright (C) 1994, Manuel A. Perez and Michael Bliss Feldman 

This program is free softwar, distributed under the terms of the GNU 
General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation. 

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT 
ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS 
FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

I. ABOUT THE GW-Ada/Ed-Mac DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT 

GW-Ada/Ed-Mac is a development environment built around the New York
University (NYU) AdaEd compiler/interpreter. It allows the editing,
compiling, binding and execution of Ada 83 programs. GW-Ada/Ed-Mac was
supervised by Prof. Michael B. Feldman. Manuel A. Perez, a GWU doctoral
student in Computer Science, is responsible for the Macintosh version,
including the editor and developer shell. 

NYU's original README file is included in the distribution, for your
information. In summary, Ada/Ed was developed several years ago, and
validated under the Ada Compiler Validation Capability suite then in
effect. Ada/Ed is a full-scale compiler, which generates instructions for
a virtual machine. Execution is carried out by an interpreter for this
virtual machine. 

Ada/Ed handles nearly all of Ada 83, including tasking and generics.
Not supported are a number of machine-dependent features, most of which
are not sensible to support in a virtual-machine environment.

The multi-window editor follows the usual Macintosh menu and command-key
conventions. Source files are limited to 32k characters, however. 
Standard output is sent to a subset-VT100 console window, so that cursor 
addressing and other ANSI escape sequences are supported. We think that
the system will be fun to use and as easy to work with as most Mac 
programs are. Students who have tested the system comment that it, like
GW-Ada/Ed-DOS, is a great way to learn Ada.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

II. ACQUIRING AND INSTALLING GW-Ada/Ed-Mac FROM AN FTP ARCHIVE 

System requirements - a Mac with a 68030 or 68040 processor, System 7, and
at least 4mb of RAM. You should have around 10mb free space on your hard
disk, too. The program will not run under System 6; it appears to be OK with
a 68020 processor. You are welcome to try, but we make no promises. 

The distribution contains 7 files, as given below. If you are interested
only in using GW-Ada/Ed-Mac but not modifying it, you need not copy the
first file, which contains the source code (in C and C++).

-rw-r--r--   1 archiver archive   2020836 May 26 20:07 GWAdaSource.sea.hqx
-rw-r--r--   1 3007     archive    155782 Jan 22 12:26 adaprogs.sea.hqx
-rw-r--r--   1 3007     archive   1192295 Jan 31 12:21 gw-adaed.sea.hqx
-rw-r--r--   1 archiver archive       497 May 28 17:06 packing.lst
-rw-r--r--   1 3007     archive      4669 Jan 22 12:27 readme.mac
-rw-r--r--   1 3007     archive     24329 Jan 22 12:27 readme.nyu
-rw-r--r--   1 3007     archive     11182 Jan 30 16:16 userman.mac


readme.mac gives brief instructions for unpacking and installing the
system.  

readme.nyu is the original NYU document for Ada/Ed; you don't need it
to run this system, but it contains useful background information. 

userman.mac is a brief user manual for GW-Ada/Ed-Mac; you can open it with
any ASCII editor or Word Processor; we recommend that you open it with the
GW-Ada/Ed-Mac editor, once you've installed the system.

The files gw-adaed.sea.hqx and adaprogs.sea.hqx are BinHex-ed
self-extracting Stuffit archives. Once you've downloaded the files to your
Mac, you need to use the BinHex utility program to un-encode them. BinHex
is a free program that you can pick up from any Mac archive or user group. 

The folder named "GWU AdaEd Folder" contains a file icon "GWU Ada"with a
version number. This is a double-clickable application. The other files
are not. Do NOT move or otherwise disturb these files! GW-Ada/Ed expects
to find those files, and behavior will be unpredictable if you mess with
them. The folders GWUDemos, NYUDemos, and Spider contain sets of
interesting programs to de,onstrate the capabilities of GW-Ada/Ed-Mac and
of Ada in general. GWUDemos was produced by GWU, NYUDemos by NYU, and
Spider by John Dalbey of California Polytechnic State University at San
Luis Obispo.

Once all four folders are available on your Mac, start reading the user
manual, which gives a brief tutorial on using the system.

We would like to have some idea who is using our software, and therefore 
request that you make contact by e-mail to let us know how you like it.

Enjoy!
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: ADA compiler on Mac?

[Beth Walker]

evans@evans.pgh.pa.us (Arthur Evans Jr) writes:
>The only commercial product for the Mac is the one originally written
>by Meridian.  Meridian later merged with Verdix, and the resulting
>company later become part of Rational.

<stuff deleted>

>Any reader of this news group who needs an Ada compiler on the Mac would
>do well to make that need known to Rational.  Write to them at
>    product_info@rational.com

Well, I sent email to them, and got a very prompt reply.  However, 
Mac users will not be happy with the answer.  Bottom line -- the
Mac compiler will not be upgraded.  Reason:  they also acquired the
Verdix VADS compiler, and this is the product they will be pursuing.
They will be producing a Windows NT version for the PC market.  They
will not be supporting DOS, Mac, or the original Windows.  

All of this is driven by their bottom line.  As for Mac, there is
not a big enough market for them to expend resources. In fact, the
person I talked to said that Meridian had approached Apple to help
fund further development of the Mac compiler.  Apple turned them
down - not enough potential for return on investment.

Looks like Ada/Ed will be it for MacIntosh folks.  There will be
NO commercial Ada compiler for the Mac.

Re: ADA compiler on Mac?

[David Weller]

In article <1994Oct18.175809.26163@nosc.mil>,
Beth Walker <bwalker@nosc.mil> wrote:
>evans@evans.pgh.pa.us (Arthur Evans Jr) writes:
>
>Well, I sent email to them, and got a very prompt reply.  However, 
>Mac users will not be happy with the answer.  Bottom line -- the
>Mac compiler will not be upgraded.  Reason:  they also acquired the
>Verdix VADS compiler, and this is the product they will be pursuing.
>They will be producing a Windows NT version for the PC market.  They
>will not be supporting DOS, Mac, or the original Windows.  
>
>All of this is driven by their bottom line.  As for Mac, there is
>not a big enough market for them to expend resources. In fact, the
>person I talked to said that Meridian had approached Apple to help
>fund further development of the Mac compiler.  Apple turned them
>down - not enough potential for return on investment.
>
>Looks like Ada/Ed will be it for MacIntosh folks.  There will be
>NO commercial Ada compiler for the Mac.
>

DOn't give up hope.  The Academic Development Environment contract,
which was SUPPOSED TO BE AWARDED SIX MONTH AGO (ok, enough sour
grapes), requires the contractor build a development environment
around an Ada 9X compiler for three platforms: OS/2, Windows NT, and
the Mac.  Now, if I were a betting man, I'd liberally interpret the
_actual_ results as: OS/2 Warp, Windows95, and Mac System 7.5.  The
resulting product will be made available to all for no more than $50
per copy.

Of course, that's assuming a little office in New Mexico ever decides
to take action.  As it is, this six month delay has robbed you of an
opportunity to try out an Ada 9X Mac product _today_.  

-- 
Proud (and vocal) member of Team Ada! (and Team OS/2)        ||This is not your
   	      Ada -- Very Cool.  Doesn't Suck.               ||  father's Ada 
For all sorts of interesting Ada tidbits, run the command:   ||________________
"finger dweller@starbase.neosoft.com | more" (or e-mail with "finger" as subj.)
   ObNitPick: Spelling Ada as ADA is like spelling C++ as CPLUSPLUS. :-) 

Re: ADA compiler on Mac?

[Tucker Taft]

In article <1994Oct18.175809.26163@nosc.mil>,
Beth Walker <bwalker@nosc.mil> wrote:
> ...
>Looks like Ada/Ed will be it for MacIntosh folks.  There will be
>NO commercial Ada compiler for the Mac.

The Ada 9X Project Office is about to award a contract for 
an "Academic Ada9X" compiler, which will be hosted on Windows 
NT and the Mac, so don't give up completely.  

Furthermore, I am sure GNAT will eventually find its 
way to the Mac, and you may be able to get "commercial"
maintenance on it from "ACT," a company founded to support
GNAT.

S. Tucker Taft   stt@inmet.com
Intermetrics, Inc.
Cambridge, MA  02138

Re: ADA compiler on Mac?

[Robert Dewar]

"There will be NO commercial Ada compiler for the Mac"

I don't quite see how you conclude this from talking to one vendor! You
can certainly talk with certainty about the present, but I would hesitate
a little to talk with such certainty about the future!

Re: ADA compiler on Mac?

[Beth Walker]

I wrote:
"There will be NO commercial Ada compiler for the Mac"

Bob Dewar wrote:
I don't quite see how you conclude this from talking to one vendor! You
can certainly talk with certainty about the present, but I would hesitate
a little to talk with such certainty about the future!

Well, the reason I came to this conclusion is that --
   - Alsys decided not to go with a Mac compiler 
   - Verdix only had the Mac compiler because they bought out
     Meridian.  When Rational bought them out, guess what, no
     Mac compiler.

I have talked to Meridian representatives before.  Its hard to
have talked to very many compiler companies about Mac Ada 
simply because there aren't any! 

Perhaps the advent of the Power PC and the upcoming educational
Mac compilers will change this.  I hope so.  However, since the
only remaining commercial compiler for the Mac OS is now defunct,
and since I haven't heard any rumors of another one to take its
place, I still feel that the chances of getting a commercial Mac
compiler are pretty slim.

Anybody know if the Power PC will run software for Windows NT?

WinNT for PPC, was Re: ADA compiler on Mac?

[Tom Griest]

In article bwalker@nosc.mil (Beth Walker) writes:
>
>Anybody know if the Power PC will run software for Windows NT?
>

Yes.  Motorola will be releasing (VSN) NT for the PREP [standard
architecture for PPC systems].  IBM and Motorola will both be
building systems to PREP.  Motorola will be manufacturing "low-cost"
Baby AT motherboards for their PPC, that will be PREP compliant.
There are talks that Apple will change their architecture to be
compliant with PREP.  This would allow you to have an Ada compiler
on a "Mac", but in some sense... is it really a Mac if its not
running an Apple OS?

Once you have NT on PPC, getting GNAT on it should be quite simple. :-)

-Tom

Re: ADA compiler on Mac?

[Beth Walker]

Arthur Evans Jr asks:

I expect Rational will continue to maintain
the product.  Do you know anything to the contrary?

You are correct -- the person I talked to said that she expected
that Rational will maintain the Ada 83 version of the compiler.
However, there will be no Ada 9X upgrade, and I got the impression
that the maintenance for the existing compiler would be limited
to the bare minimum.

I don't know how long they will continue to offer the 83 compiler
for sale.

Ada Jobs in Verse

[Alexy V. Khrabrov]

I don't care about your experience,
Please show me your valid secret clearance!


;-)
Alexy 

Re: Ada Jobs in Verse

[Alex Cellarius]

Alexy V. Khrabrov (Alexy.V.Khrabrov@dartmouth.edu) wrote:
: I don't care about your experience,
: Please show me your valid secret clearance!


: ;-)
: Alexy 

Can that be as hard
as getting a Green Card?

Re: Ada Jobs in Verse

[SrA Tim Miller]

On 27 Oct 94 14:14:43 GMT, acell@mdavcr.mda.ca (Alex Cellarius) said:
A> Alexy V. Khrabrov (Alexy.V.Khrabrov@dartmouth.edu) wrote: 

A> : I don't care about your experience, 
A> : Please show me your valid secret clearance!

A> Can that be as hard 
A> as getting a Green Card?

Only a fraction;
One gets one at auction.

-- Cerebus <tjm@hrlib.brooks.af.mil>
"Should we be crossposting to alt.cascades?"

Re: ADA compiler on Mac?

[Robert Dewar]

I would also suggest that people who want Ada on the MAC also make
sure that Apple knows about it. After all, consider Art's threat to
move to another platform, that doesn't mean much to Rational, indeed
perhaps it would be convenient for them if he switches platforms, but
it sure means something to Apple. THe more people who let Apple know
they need Ada, the better.

Re: ADA compiler on Mac?

[Arthur Evans Jr]

In article <3816bn$n23@schonberg.cs.nyu.edu>, dewar@cs.nyu.edu
(Robert Dewar) wrote:

> I would also suggest that people who want Ada on the MAC also make
> sure that Apple knows about it. After all, consider Art's threat to
> move to another platform, that doesn't mean much to Rational, indeed
> perhaps it would be convenient for them if he switches platforms, but
> it sure means something to Apple. THe more people who let Apple know
> they need Ada, the better.

Yes, good idea!  But, how best to do this?  Apple's such a big
organization that it's hard to see how to influence it.

Apple, like most hardware vendors, produces little of the software that
runs on the Mac.  Now they even seem to be getting out of software
development, as MPW seems not to be moving towards PowerPC.  I think
that Apple is perfectly happy to let CodeWarrior from Metrowerks take
over this segment of the market.  So, it seems to me that the best
leverage for us is to push on MetroWerks to provide Ada support.  They
support C, C++ and Pascal; why not Ada 94 too?

If you think MPW is the way to go, push on APDA, the part of Apple that
sells products to software developers.  I called them and asked about
Ada support; they never heard of it.  Or push on Symantec, which sells
several products for C, C++ and Pascal.

Other suggestions?

Art Evans

Arthur Evans Jr, PhD        Phone: 412-963-0839
Ada Consulting              FAX:   412-963-0927
461 Fairview Road
Pittsburgh PA  15238-1933
evans@evans.pgh.pa.us

Re: ADA compiler on Mac? Yes

[David Moore]

<<SKIPPED>>
> 
> Meridian make a Ada compiler for the MAC, OS2, Sun ,Ibm
> 
> the address is
> 
> Meridian Software Systems
> 10 Pasteur St
> Irvine, CA 92718
> 
> they also have an internet email of
> 
> support@Meridian.com
> 
> I have the Windows version but my collegue is using the MAC version.

Some people may know, but apparently not all, that Meridian which developed
the MAC Ada compiler merged with Verdix. Then as all business seems to go
in America Verdix merged with Rational. So when people are talking about
the Meridian MAC Ada compiler, the Verdix MAC Ada compiler, and the
Rational MAC Ada compiler they are discussing the same thing.

The key issue is, of course, not that there is an Ada83 compiler for the
MAC, but whether or not there will be an Ada9X version. Enough bitching to
Meridian/Verdix/Rational may just get that ol' squeaky compiler wheel
greased.

-- 
David T. Moore                  | 719-260-0751 / dmoore@dmenters.com
David Moore Enterprises         | "Nothing is more dangerous than an
6660 Buffalo Drive              | idea when it's the only one you have"
Colorado Springs, CO 80918-1685 |                      - Emile Chartier

Re: ADA compiler on Mac? Yes

[Beelzebubba]

What would also be swell would be a gnat port for MachTen, since there is one
for 68K-next it would involve very little work, but would require know-how that
I dont have :(
-- 
|---------v---------v---------v---------|----------v---------v---------v---------|
William C. McLean III       Kansas State University     Mail:  pharoah@ksu.ksu.edu
148 Marlatt Hall, KSU       Dept of Computer Science    Ip#    129.130.99.101
Manhattan, KS 66506-2000                                Phone: (913) 395 3938

Re: ADA compiler on Mac? Yes

[David Emery]

When you contact your local Rational Sales Representative, be sure to
ascertain Rational's support and commitment to this product, to make
sure that this meets your needs.

				dave
--
--The preceeding opinions do not necessarily reflect the opinions of
--The MITRE Corporation or its sponsors. 
-- "A good plan violently executed -NOW- is better than a perfect plan
--  next week"                                      George Patton
-- "Any damn fool can write a plan.  It's the execution that gets you
--  all screwed up"                              James Hollingsworth
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: ADA compiler on Mac?

[Qualcomm.com]

In article <Oct18.063909.104306@acs.ucalgary.ca>, chinsch@acs.ucalgary.ca
(Yingwu Fang) wrote:

> Dear Netters,
> 
> Does anyone know if there is an ADA compiler on Mac (system 7)
> out there? 

Alright, already!  I can't stand the pain!

I helped develop TeleSoft's TeleGen2 A/UX Ada compiler.  After that, I
ported it all to System 7 and it worked VERY nice.  It can be done, it
wouldn't be sold.  Why?  Same reasons as mentioned in this string -
business, money, politics, etc.

I've spent a few years trying to figure out how to get a real Ada on the
Mac.

I don't know that it's Apple's, the compiler vendor's or the user base's
single responsibility to make this happen.  Nobody seems to want to make a
serious effort to make this happen.  I've given a lot of credit to Michael
Feldman for making the best effort to date to generate an Ada/Mac
following.  GNAT seems like a promising star also.

With Apple's commitment to PowerPC, you'll almost have to go with a GNAT. 
I believe that it would take a good chunk of effort to port Meridian's
approach there (plus move it towards 9x).  Also, Ada compiler efforts (that
I'm aware of) towards PowerPC platforms are weak and first generation (or
depend heavily on an existing quality C compiler).  We'll see (I'm not a
PowerPC fan).

Whatever happens, it's just a shame that what we'll end up with is what I
already had - a great compiler that generated great code on a great
platform :-(

(These opinions are my own and rooted in deep respect for the old TeleSoft.
 Unfortunately, in my new job, I've been swallowed up by the monster of C++
(Greg will have fun with that comment) and don't get to spend much time
with Ada - though I do keep in touch!)

Cheers!

Mark Muri
QUALCOMM, Inc
San Diego, CA