The World of Ada at TI

[+FarmerPotato]

I have a box of Ada books and training material from TI, circa 1987-1991.   Ada was a programming language commissioned by the US Department of Defense (DOD), to replace the multitude of programming languages used in so many military systems. 

 

This booklet from 1987 might have been a handout at a trade show.   Read it if you want a look into TI's Defense Systems Electronics Group.

 

The booklet refers to MIL-STD-1750A as a target for compiled Ada.  1750A was a RISC architecture, which aimed to reduce the number of CPUs the Air Force needed to support.  Well guess what.  

 

TI provided a VHSIC implementation of the 1750A CPU core, so custom chips could be quickly fabricated around it.  VHSIC was another DoD project that is still with us, in the form of VHDL--VHSIC Hardware Description Language.  The DoD insisted that VHDL should reuse much of the work on Ada, so VHDL inherited its syntax.  

 

 

Ada_At_TI.pdf

[jstimson]

I programmed in ADA for a number of systems and absolutely love the language.  The strictness of it appeals to me.  I wrote programs for various military and defence purposes. 

 

 

[+TheBF]

Makes me wonder if the GCC port for TI-99 could compile ADA. ??

 

https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gnat_ugn/Running-a-Simple-Ada-Program.html

[+FarmerPotato]

Now I see the pamphlet came in an "Ada welcome packet" internal to TI. There is a list of tools for use--Tartan Labs being the preferred compiler. Long report from CMU Software Eng Institute. A TI software standards guide.  List of 3 classes TI offered on Ada. 

One student workbook for Ada: all the homework and test questions--none of the slides or answer key 🙂

 

Two issues of internal TI magazine Ada Perspectives. Volume IV #1 and 2.
 

One article benchmarks Ada compilers vs hand-coded assembler, finding acceptable ratios of speed and size.

 

 

 

[+MarkB]

On 7/21/2024 at 3:30 PM, TheBF said:

Makes me wonder if the GCC port for TI-99 could compile ADA. ??

In theory, yes, all that should be needed is to install gnat, reconfigure gcc and rebuild.

 

But I tried it and it doesn't (currently) work.  Apparently gnat now needs a minimum of GCC4.6 https://lists.debian.org/debian-gcc/2011/12/msg00003.html

[+FarmerPotato]

On 8/17/2024 at 11:58 AM, MarkB said:

But I tried it and it doesn't (currently) work.  Apparently gnat now needs a minimum of GCC4.6

Check the gcc thread here, that's in the roadmap. 
 

I hadn't  heard of gnat before. 
 

Besides the compiling, there's a question of standard libraries and runtime support. 

[+Cafeman]

Just commenting, around 1990 I took a 3 credit compsci Ada course, got an A. It was a cool language, but I've never encountered it again in 30+ years of working in the usual business IT world.  A certain homebrewer mentions Ada all the time.  

[jstimson]

28 minutes ago, Cafeman said:

Just commenting, around 1990 I took a 3 credit compsci Ada course, got an A. It was a cool language, but I've never encountered it again in 30+ years of working in the usual business IT world.  A certain homebrewer mentions Ada all the time.  

One of the things that prevented it from becoming fully mainstream was the cost of getting a fully validated compiler.  When C was available to anyone for very little cost, getting into ADA was prohibitively expensive.  It really only lived as a real programming language in the massive companies that could afford the development environment.

So even when it eventually got cheaper to use, it was too late since other languages pulled in some of the higher level capabilities and already had their stranglehold on the larger commercial marketplace.

It's a shame though, I often wonder how much more stable and reliable much of the software we use would be had it achieved traction to be the language of choice.

[+mizapf]

I know Ada from spoiling the maiden flight of the Ariane 5 rocket: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_flight_V88

 

(of course, it's the programmer at the end of the day)

[+MarkB]

2 hours ago, FarmerPotato said:

Check the gcc thread here, that's in the roadmap. 
 

I hadn't  heard of gnat before. 
 

Besides the compiling, there's a question of standard libraries and runtime support. 

Gnat = Gnu Ada compiler.  It is now I believe part of gcc (which now stands for Gnu Compiler Collection).  In theory, libraries should get cross-compiled with the same tms9900 back-end.  As for runtime support, again, in theory, it should work with whatever the TI99 currently uses for Ada.  But best to wait for gcc-14 support for tms9900 before testing any of that.

[+FarmerPotato]

12 minutes ago, MarkB said:

As for runtime support, again, in theory, it should work with whatever the TI99 currently uses for Ada

Did you mean, uses for the C runtime?

 

[+MarkB]

2 hours ago, FarmerPotato said:

Did you mean, uses for the C runtime?

 

I don’t know tbh. There isn’t really any C runtime on the ti99. Images are statically linked with whatever they need unless they use console ROM routines for floating point etc. I was just guessing you already something for the ti99 that could run Ada but maybe not and images also have to be statically linked with runtime libraries.  I’d better stop now ‘cos I’m really only guessing