JBROOKSHIRE@USC-ISIF.ARPA (Jerry R. Brookshire) (05/29/86)
I recently sent an enquiry to this list about status/experience/use of the
Army Ada Language System (ALS), and promised to summarize the results, if
any. Well, The results are fairly sparse, but may themselves prompt more
response, so here they are:
1.__________
Reply-To: "CALLAND" <calland@nosc-tecr>
I believe the Army is in the process of winding down the
ALS program. I have been told the Army cancelled it about 6 wks
ago, then changed their minds, and now is investigating the
costs of contract cancellation and having a tiger team study
the situation simultaneously.
The Navy is basing its Ada development on the ALS - this
program is called ALS/N. The project engineer is Bill Wilder
of the Naval Sea Systems Command, PMS 408. I believe his
net address is WILDER@NUSC-NPT. His phone number is 202 692 8204.
The target computers are the AN/AYK-14, AN/UYK-43, and AN/UYK-44.
I would be interested in seeing what you can find out or
confirm about the future of the ALS.
2.__________
From: larry@Jpl-VLSI.ARPA
I attended the most recent ALS users group. The general consensus seemed to
be that the current version 2.something is a major improvement over version
1.0, but that a fair amount of work still needs to be done before it's really
production quality. One of the problems is the runtime module that lets you
execute outside the ALS environment, an important consideration if you want
to distribute SW to non-ALS systems. Another is the enormous resources used
by the ALS. You pretty much have to have a VAX dedicated to the ALS.
As for targets, the only one they officially support is to bare Intel 8086/8,
using (as I recall--don't have documentation here) the Intel MDS as an
intermediary.
Who's using it? Not very many people, apparently. I'm providing help to
two DoD prjects, one USAF and one Army. Both have the ALS, but have bought
the DEC Ada compiler and are using it for their real work. When they complete
the baseline systems, they will then convert it to the ALS and deliver that.
I've talked to people who are doing something similar using the Verdix system.
Eventually the ALS will be a very nice system. They're closer to having a
full Stoneman CAIS than the commercial people, but they also need to develop
more optimized compiler and run-time system. They also need to develop hooks
to off-the-shelf SW such as DBMSs, graphics packages, and the like.
Larry @ jpl-vlsi
3.__________
From: prindle@NADC
The ALS is currently being used as the baseline for the Navy ALS/N, a substan-
tial retargeting effort intended to support Ada applications running on one
of the three Navy standard computer architectures, the AN/UYK-44, the AN/UYK-43,
and the AN/AYK-14. In addition to straightforward retargeting of the compiler,
both the Programming Support Environment and the Run-Time Environment are being
customized to specific Navy tactical embedded systems requirements; nonetheless,
the ALS compiler front end (Machine-Independent) section and the MAPSE are to
be used with only minor modifications. The major modifications are in the
compiler back-end (code generator), the run-time support, and the addition of
tools and capabilities not currently supported by ALS. The ALS/N, in turn,
will become the Navy's principal High-Order-Language for development of
tactical embedded applications, thereby replacing CMS-2. Hope this information
is useful for your survey.
Frank Prindle
Prindle@NADC.arpa
4.__________
From: Rob Spray <rob%ct.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
There was an article on the ALS in the May 1986 issue of
The DEC Professional written by Dennis Turner who is
"chief of Software Technology Development Division within
the Center for Tactical Computer Systems, Fort Monmouth".
On p122 he states:
"The ALS is currently hosted on the VAX-11/780 with the VMS
operating system. The version of the compiler that is targeted to the
host was validated by the Ada Joint Program Office (AJPO) in
December 1984. Continuing development activities will produce
targets for the Intel iAPX286 and a "bare" (no resident operating
system) VAX. Plans are also underway to retarget the ALS to the
Motorola 68000 family."
A footnote states:
"Request for copies of the Ada Language System, documentation or
any of the Ada or ALS training material developed at CECOM should
be directed to:
Commander, U.S. Army CECOM
ATTN: AMSEL-TCS-ADA
Fort Monmouth, NJ 07703-5204"
Couple of rumors:
1) Heard at a SIGAda conference that any Govt contractor could get
an free evaluation copy of the ALS
2) A local site reports that the ALS performance is getting better.
Rob Spray
Computer * Thought
rob%ct@csnet-relay
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