HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: hawkinsg@saifr00.cfsat.honeywell.com (Glenn Hawkins)
Subject: Basic embedded concepts and Ada
Organization: Honeywell Air Transport Systems Division
Distribution: comp.lang.ada
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 93 02:25:44 GMT

Howdy!

I have some REALLY basic embedded software design questions pertaining to Ada.
Although I've got embedded programming experience (mainly in JOVIAL), I've never
written anything so down-in-the-guts-of-the-hardware before.  All of my Ada 
experience is in non-embedded applications, so if some of these questions seem 
really stupid, I apologize in advance...

I'm in the middle of writing a device driver in Ada targeted to the AMD 29050.
The interface hardware is somewhat complicated, with all sorts of odd-sized 
status registers, control registers, etc. to assist the software in BIT
and other hardware manipulations.  They are all laid out in a memory map, so I've
already figured out that I need to "tie" the addresses of the objects representing
these registers to the addresses specified in the memory map using rep specs.
As a novice at this sort of thing, that wasn't immediately obvious to me :(.

I think that to set bits in these registers it would be easiest for
me to define the objects representing the registers as 32-bit integers, allowing
me to simply add constants (1, 2, 4, 8, etc.) representing the different bits
I want to set. Just like I would in JOVIAL, C, etc.   Although our compiler is 
pretty efficient with word and byte level accesses, it pretty much chokes on bit 
level accesses, so representing the different registers as records of bits 
(appropriately rep spec'ed, of course) doesn't seem practical.  I'm sure many 
of you have successfully solved this problem.  Does my approach make sense?
Are there any Ada-unique gotchas here?

Seeing if a bit has been set seems more difficult.  All the approaches I've looked
at so far (multiplying by constants to simulate shifts, etc.) seem to be REALLY 
messy, since I'm used to using shifts, ANDs, etc. to isolate "bits of
interest".  I would like to avoid machine code insertions if possible.  Any ideas?

Question:  Will shifts, ANDs, ORs, etc be available in Ada 9x?
  
For my own edification, why aren't these types of things available now, since Ada
was in part designed for embedded systems programming?  I really like Ada, but at
first glance it seems as if the old girl is a bit deficient in this area...

Please respond via e-mail, unless you think it's of general interest to the net.
Any help will be greatly appreciated...

My opinions are my own.

Glenn Hawkins  -- "hawkinsg@saifr00.cfsat.honeywell.com" 
Senior Project Engineer
Boeing 777 ACMF
Honeywell ATSD 
Phoenix, Az

Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: cffs@fox.nstn.ns.ca (Doug Brown)
Subject: CPU resources for embedded Ada programs
Organization: Software Training Department
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 17:27:42 GMT

  I recently recieved a copy of lessons learned report that covered two Ada 
development projects.  The projects were 50 and 80 KLOC, were real-time, 
embedded military applications that ran 68K series processors.  Based upon 
the experience of these two projects, the authors suggested that embedded, 
real-time Ada projects will require about 1 MB of RAM and 3 MIPS of CPU 
power for every 20 KLOC.

  Are these numbers valid?  Does anyone have any experience with similar 
rules of thumb?  Is it even possible to come up with rules of thumb such 
as this, given the diverse nature of many Ada applications.  Thanks.

Doug Brown
cffs@fox.nstn.ns.ca
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: whmurray@cibecue.az05.bull.com (William H. Murray)
Subject: Re: newsletter
Reply-To: whmurray@cibecue.az05.bull.com (William H. Murray)
Organization: Bull HN Information Systems Inc., Phoenix Product Division
Distribution: USA
Date: Mon, 04 Jan 93 16:53:50 GMT

I can't seem to get mai to you. Please send
ada newsletter to
 
William H. Murray
P.O. Box 10038
Glendale, AZ. 85318
 
Thx - Bill Murray    whmurray@cibecue.az05.bull.com
From: eachus@goldfinger.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Re: New Arcadia/IRUS AFLEX-AYACC release
Date: 8 Jan 93 00:38:52 GMT
	<79378@hydra.gatech.EDU>
Organization: The Mitre Corp., Bedford, MA.


     Two maybe three legal issues here.  (I'm not a lawyer and I don't
play one on TV...  And in any case my knowledge of the law of
merchantability, such as it is, was right at one time in ONE of the
United States.)  First does any warrant of merchantability reside
in any free software product?  Probably not.  (A warrent of
merchantability is that the product is usable for the purpose for
which it is SOLD.)  What if someone charges for disks/tapes of such
software?  The implicit warranty is that the software on the disk is
what it was sold as. (i.e. If I sell you a copy of a piece of free
software written by someone else, the only warranty that I see is that
it is a proper copy of the right software.  But, if I adverise it as
the greatest C compiler since sliced bread, not gcc 3.2.2 then I am
sticking my neck out.--Again, I am not a lawyer.)  What about a
company or organization that sells copies of its own free software?
As long as the price charged is identified as a copying/media fee, the
organization is probably safe.

     Finally what about denials (not limitations) of implicit warrants
of merchantability in disclaimers?  If they were put in by a lawyer,
get a better lawyer, if they weren't written by a lawyer, delete them!
The wording in the alex/ayacc warranty reprinted below, far exceeds
the limits as I learned them, but may be okay for free software since
it says provided not sold. (Such a document could be taken as prima
facie evidence of lack of good faith in many juristictions, thereby
bringing the implied warranty into full force.  Again, I am not...)
The format I learned was:

     This product is sold as a fabbitz for frozbizzing {or
whatever}..., and is warranted free from known defects {except...}.
The manufacturer warrents that this product, if used in accordance
with...will {do what we say it will} and if not the manufacturer
agrees to refund or replace...for a period of...  This warranty takes
precedence over all other warranties express or implied.

     In other words, by providing an explicit warranty of
merchantability, it is possible to supercede (and limit) the implied
warranty.  As long as such a warranty is made in good faith, it will
hold up.  (But don't hide known bugs, and don't deny claims made in
advertisements.)

The Acadia non-warranty:

> THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ``AS IS'' AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR
> IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED
> WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.


--

					Robert I. Eachus

with Standard_Disclaimer;
use  Standard_Disclaimer;
function Message (Text: in Clever_Ideas) return Better_Ideas is...
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: 841613t@dragon.acadiau.ca (Don Tyzuk)
Subject: Re: New Arcadia/IRUS AFLEX-AYACC release
Organization: Acadia University
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 11:26:56 GMT

firth@sei.cmu.edu (Robert Firth) writes:

>I forget but you can look it up.  The distributor was a pharmaceutical
>company that gave free sample of its products to doctors as a means
>of advertising them.  When one of them killed a patient, the company
>argued just that - there was no implied warranty because no sale.
>They lost.  The issue is not whether you charge for the product, but
>the fact that you distribute it.

I also do not play a lawyer on t.v.,  but I pretend I am one
in arguments that don't belong here anymore... :-)
But, that won't stop ME from adding to it!

The pharmaceutical company is in the business  of selling the
product.  There is a business relationship there, even if the
company gives away the sample.

The distribution of GNU (and similar work) is the publication
of an academic work.  If I write a paper on how to achieve
cold fusion in a snowbank, and you try it and it doesn't work:
then you are simply reading my shoddy research and trying to
replicate the results.

I would say that distribution of this software is simply
publication of academic work.
-- 
don.tyzuk@acadiau.ca
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: yow@sweetpea.jsc.nasa.gov (Bill Yow)
Subject: Re: Crash your compiler (Was: Ada Readability, Book Reference)
Organization: MDSSC
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 16:23:24 GMT

In article <199301051815.AA06597@cnam.cnam.fr>, bortzmeyer@cnam.cnam.fr (Stephane Bortzmeyer) writes:
|> In article <1993Jan5.115003.29978@sei.cmu.edu>,
|> progers@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu (Pat Rogers) writes:
|> > In article <1993Jan4.174424.5699@seas.gwu.edu> mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu
|> (Michael Feldman) writes:

Intro stuff deleted.

|> 
|> Here are some results:
|> 
|> 1) Sony/Risc under News/OS (sort of Unix BSD) with the Alsys/Systeam compiler:
|> 
|> % time ada.c ../killer.ada
|> Compiling:  /users/labinf/bortz/ada/essais/killer.ada
|> line 0, col 1, restriction:
|>          Overflow of digit pool in constant table
|> compiler error at end of compilation unit:
|>          Compilation in SEMANTIC aborted
|> PROCEDURE  KILLER
|>   **** Number of Errors              :     2
|> 29.7u 0.5s 0:39.54 76.6% 337+196k 72+9io 354pf+0w
|> 
|> (Thirty CPU seconds before giving up.)
|> 
|> 2) DECstation under Ultrix (sort of Unix BSD) with the DEC compiler:
|> 
|> % time ada.c ../killer.ada
|> 
|> (Twenty minutes of CPU time later, the experimentator went to bed.)
|> 
|> Does anyone have such a collection of "compiler killers"?


On a Sun 2 with Sun Ada (Verdix) something like the following messages were received after about 5 minutes.

Fail to allocated 1532 bytes of memory.

Already allocated 62534400 bytes of memory.

Compile failed.


|> 
|> Stephane Bortzmeyer           Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers	
|> bortzmeyer@cnam.cnam.fr       Laboratoire d'Informatique
|>                               292, rue Saint-Martin			
|> tel: +33 (1) 40 27 27 31      75141 Paris Cedex 03
|> fax: +33 (1) 40 27 27 72      France	
|> 
|> "C'est la nuit qu'il est beau de croire a la lumiere." E. Rostand
|> 
|> 					
|> 	

						Later,
						Bill Yow
						(713) 283-4051
						yow@sweetpea.jsc.nasa.gov
						byow@mcimail.com

My opinions are my own!
From: hso6230@dsacg3.dsac.dla.mil (Greg A Buskirk)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Bindings for Micro Soft Windows to Ada
Date: 5 Jan 93 18:42:52 GMT
Organization: Defense Logistics Agency Systems Automation Center, Columbus


  Does anyone know where I could retrieve bindings for 
Micro Soft Windows to Ada ? 

Thanks ...


-------------------------------------------------
Greg Buskirk
SofTech, Inc.
EMAIL : gbuskirk@softech.com
VOICE : (614) 692-5056
-------------------------------------------------



Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: matwood%peruvian.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Mark Atwood)
Subject: Re: An Ada Program Does What It Says?
Date: 4 Jan 93 08:28:27 MST
Organization: University of Utah

In article <9301031530.AA17787@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu>, SAHARBAUGH@ROO.FIT.EDU writes:
>I searched B&M's book and noted each example program whose 
>output is "indeterminate" or "implementation dependent".  I 
>noted the page number on which the answer appears.  

(deleted)

>My warning stands.  Ada code looks deceptively readable.  The 
>reader must understand the language translator and the 
>runtime environment to be able to correctly read an Ada 
>program.

I just finished reading those books, and yes there do seem to be a lot of
indeterminate and compiler dependent "thing" in the Ada standard.  A co-
worker and I discussed it for a while and made the observation that probably
every language has these "gotcha"'s, they just aren't as well documented
or understood.

Stuff like expression ordering, floating point representation, concurency,
etc, will always be indeterminate.

Not to trigger yet another C vs Ada flamefest, but this expression in
C is a classic example...

  r = (i++ == ++i)

-- 
Mark Atwood                  :: Being a kitten is it's own excuse.
matwood@peruvian.cs.utah.edu :: 
The University has enough problems without being blamed for mine.
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: nbssal@robots (Stephe Leake)
Subject: Re: CPU resources for embedded Ada programs
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.4-b1  
Organization: NASA Goddard Robotics Lab
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 18:58:00 GMT

In article <cffs.14@fox.nstn.ns.ca>, cffs@fox.nstn.ns.ca (Doug Brown) writes...
>  I recently recieved a copy of lessons learned report that covered two Ada 
>development projects.  The projects were 50 and 80 KLOC, were real-time, 
>embedded military applications that ran 68K series processors.  Based upon 
>the experience of these two projects, the authors suggested that embedded, 
>real-time Ada projects will require about 1 MB of RAM and 3 MIPS of CPU 
>power for every 20 KLOC.
> 
>  Are these numbers valid?  Does anyone have any experience with similar 
>rules of thumb?  Is it even possible to come up with rules of thumb such 
>as this, given the diverse nature of many Ada applications.  Thanks.
> 
>Doug Brown
>cffs@fox.nstn.ns.ca

I'm using Alsys Ada on 3 bare 16 Mhz 386/387 Multibus I boards, running a
real-time robot control system with a basic servo cycle time of 20
milliseconds. There are 24K source lines of code, occupying about 500 kbytes of
RAM. I don't know the MIPS rating, but only half the code is on the servo
board, which has a 50% utilization. So my application and/or Alsys yeilds lower
requirements than the above.

Stephen Leake	NASA Goddard Robotics Lab
internet : nbssal@robots.gsfc.nasa.gov
From: brookshire@mfsvax.decnet.lockheed.com (Jerry R. Brookshire - 404/494-6415 - FAX: 404/494-4331)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: Request for Metrics Info
Date: 10 Jan 93 17:00:27 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: The Internet

It has recently been recognized that the candidate components for the reuse of 
software include all development parts, not just code.  In order to estimate 
storage requirements for a reuse repository, this needs to be taken into 
account.  

Has anyone developed or seen any metrics on the relative sizes of such 
components - Analyses, Requirements, Preliminary Designs, Simulations/Models,
Test Drivers/Harnesses, Test Cases, Documentation (2167-A-Types, et al), etc.,
- to Ada LOC estimates?

If you will reply direct to me at
		"brookshire@mfsvax.decnet.lockheed.com"
I will summarize responses to the List.
Thanks,
Jerry R Brookshire - 404/494-6415
Lockheed Aeronautical Systems Co
Dept 73-68, Zone 0670
86 S. Cobb Drive
Marietta, GA 30063
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman)
Subject: Re: Enum's start at 0?
Organization: George Washington University
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 02:59:29 GMT

In article <1993Jan5.220007.26218@gvl.unisys.com> schrey@prc.unisys.com writes:
>In article <1992Dec30.033842.10112@seas.gwu.edu>, mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman) writes:

[stuff deleted]

>|> >
>|> Just like everything else in computing. ASCII characters, for example,
>|> run from 0 to 127, not 128. You can represent 0..127 using one less bit than
>|> 1..128.
>|> 
>   All right... then why do string indices start at 1? :-)
>
Beats me. Anyone out there have an authoritative answer?

Mike Feldman
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: ucaa2385@iris3.csv.ica.uni-stuttgart.de (Peter Hermann)
Subject: Re: Enum's start at 0?
Organization: ica2
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 13:25:48 GMT

In article <1993Jan6.025929.18871@seas.gwu.edu> mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman) writes:
>In article <1993Jan5.220007.26218@gvl.unisys.com> schrey@prc.unisys.com writes:
>>In article <1992Dec30.033842.10112@seas.gwu.edu>, mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman) writes:
>
>[stuff deleted]
>
>>|> >
>>|> Just like everything else in computing. ASCII characters, for example,
>>|> run from 0 to 127, not 128. You can represent 0..127 using one less bit than
>>|> 1..128.
>>|> 
>>   All right... then why do string indices start at 1? :-)
>>
>Beats me. Anyone out there have an authoritative answer?
>
>Mike Feldman

shouldn't beat you. Both are reasonable.

The first is considered and used more as an "offset".
Additionally it coincides well with age-old integer-to-byte
and vice versa representation.
This representation can well be adopted and is the most likely
fitting data format when talking to foreign hardware
(in the serendipiduous sense). Additionally, the compiler has 
the minimum conceivable work.
I see no harm with that rule. I see the benefits.

The second is naturally used for indexing,
which would be extremely disadvantages with a 0 as first index,
when working on vector and matrix material,
especially for more-dimensional matrices.
Here, you do not think in offsets but in elements, e11,e12,e13,...

Peter Hermann


Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: wallace@etre (Richard Wallace)
Subject: Help: Bryan & Mendal book reference
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 03:35:21 GMT


Thanks to all (even the author, wow!) who sent me mail!  I've got the reference
now.


Richard Wallace
Senior Software Engineer
Digital Equipment Corporation
301 Rockrimmon Blvd. South
CXO2-1/7A
Colorado Springs, CO 80919-2398
(719)548-2792
<wallace@cookie.enet.dec.com>

"The opinions expressed are my own, B.P. may not *quite* agree..."


Xref: sparky comp.lang.ada:3920 comp.compilers:2112
From: mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.compilers
Subject: Re: Compiler Construction in Ada
Keywords: courses, Ada, books
Date: 7 Jan 93 23:28:00 GMT
Article-I.D.: comp.93-01-039
Reply-To: mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman)
Organization: George Washington University

jipping@cs.hope.edu (Mike Jipping) writes:
>I'm looking at teaching Construction in the Spring semester.  [Our old
>Pascal compiler has gone away.  How about using Ada?]

Others are commenting on the Sun compilers. I just hope you are using the
Fischer/LeBlanc book, "Crafting a Compiler" (the Ada version).  The
language being compiled is a decent Ada subset; the language of discourse
of the book is Ada. That will get your students started very nicely!

Mike Feldman
--
Michael B. Feldman, co-chair, SIGAda Education Committee
Professor, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
School of Engineering and Applied Science, The George Washington University
Washington, DC 20052 USA
(202) 994-5253 (voice), (202) 994-5296 (fax), mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Internet)
-- 
Send compilers articles to compilers@iecc.cambridge.ma.us or
{ima | spdcc | world}!iecc!compilers.  Meta-mail to compilers-request.
From: tas@madre.dasd.honeywell.com (Todd A Sorensen)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Subject: VAX Ada debugging question
Date: 7 Jan 93 16:29:22 GMT
Organization: Honeywell Flight Management Systems
Nntp-Posting-User: tas

This is a question for VAX Ada gurus:

I have a generic instantiation that raises an exception,  this particular
exception bombs my program (bad!) .  I have the program counter offset (from the
exception handler) and the link map output.  I have located the file in the link
map where the exception should occur.  The problem is that I can't find the same
file in my Ada library to compile it with /list and locate the exact occurence
of the exception.  Any ideas on how to determine what file the code really comes
from?

Thanks!
-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Todd A Sorensen               Honeywell Defense Avionics Systems Division
(505) 828-5611                internet: tas@dasd.honeywell.com
                              fax: (505) 828-5500
------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: firth@sei.cmu.edu (Robert Firth)
Subject: Re: Beginning of End of Ada Mandate
Organization: Software Engineering Institute
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 07:50:46 EST

In article <C0EusD.JG3@world.std.com> srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian) writes:

>    Paul Strassman, as I have pointed out before, does not regard Ada highly.
>And when the DoD computing czar, currently sweeping every DoD computer under
>his belt (and getting away with it over service turf walls), does not highly
>regard Ada, you can start kissing the Mandate goodby. Never have spoken to him
>personally, so my belief in this statement is mostly based on the fact that he
>publicly never mentions in the context of defense computing.

I have spoken to Mr Strassman personally, and can confirm that he does
have a high regard for Ada.  Of course, being a good professional with
an interest in getting the job done, he regards it as a tool, not a
religion, and so doesn't feel the need to wave it in the air like the
head of John the Baptist at every conceivable opportunity.

Have you ever considered writing for the Weekly World News, Mr Aharonian?

Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.compilers
From: crigler@osceola.cs.ucf.edu (James Crigler)
Subject: Re: Compiler Construction in Ada
Reply-To: crigler@osceola.cs.ucf.edu (James Crigler)
Organization: University of Central Florida
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 14:24:41 GMT
Keywords: courses, Ada, books

jipping@cs.hope.edu (Mike Jipping) writes:
>I'm looking at teaching Construction in the Spring semester.  [Our old
>Pascal compiler has gone away.  How about using Ada?]

mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman) writes:
>Others are commenting on the Sun compilers. I just hope you are using the
>Fischer/LeBlanc book, "Crafting a Compiler" (the Ada version).  ...

If you can stand the book.  When I took the compiler course here, we used
the book Prof. Mike mentions and I didn't like it.  Caveat: We were using
lex/yacc to create a compiler, which is, of course (:-) the opposite
approach to parsing.  (Since I had the class they've gone back to using
the Dragon book :-) but I can't afford a copy :-(

Jim Crigler
-- 
Send compilers articles to compilers@iecc.cambridge.ma.us or
{ima | spdcc | world}!iecc!compilers.  Meta-mail to compilers-request.
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
From: bdorough@eng.auburn.edu (Barry L. Dorough)
Subject: Matrix Package
Organization: Auburn University Engineering
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 03:13:26 GMT


I am having trouble with the news at Auburn so if multiples of this
was sent I am truely sorry. I am looking for packages for matrix and 
vector operations If you know of any please email me at
bdorough@eng.auburn.edu 
		Thanks, Barry

Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada