arpaftp@cmcl2.UUCP (07/20/83)
For those who may not have heard, the NYU Ada system recently became the first
validated by the Ada Joint Program Office of the DoD. It is available
to any interested parties at nominal cost. Following is a description of the
system as currently available, and an order form for those wishing to
acquire it.
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Ada Project
Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences
New York University
251 Mercer Street
New York, New York 10012
April 14, 1983
The New York University (NYU) Ada/Ed implementation of Ada[1] is now available
for the IBM VM/CMS and MVS operating systems. This extends prior work that has
produced implementations for DEC VAX-11 (VMS and 4.1 BSD UNIX[2]) and Amdahl
UTS, some of which have been in the field for over a year, and which have been
collectively distributed to over 150 academic and non-academic sites.
Ada/Ed (VAX/VMS version) is the first complete implementation of the new
programming language Ada that has been validated by the Ada Joint Program
Office. Versions of Ada/Ed for other systems are functionally identical to the
one for VMS and should be validated in the near future. Ada/Ed was developed
at New York University over the last three years, for the United States Army
under contract to the Software Engineering Division of CENTACS, Fort Monmouth,
New Jersey, as the central part of a large research effort in software
prototyping.
The design goal of the NYUADA project has been to produce (as rapidly as
possible) a complete language Ada system which is faithful in all respects to
the language definition, and that can serve as an operational definition of
Ada, to be perused by language designers, implementors and users. The design
and implementation of Ada/Ed was initiated at a point when the language was not
completely defined or understood (in fact the first version was an
implementation of Preliminary Ada), and has culminated in the first fully
validated ANSI-Ada translator.
A conventional approach to compiler construction, realized in a medium level
language such as PASCAL, BLISS or SIMULA, would have resulted in a massive
program text which would not have met either criterion of usability and
readability. Instead, the entire Ada/Ed system was programmed using a very high
level language developed at NYU with NSF support called SETL (for SET
Language). Using SETL, it was possible to create a complete Ada system in about
one fifth of the person/months which would otherwise have been required.
There are several implementations of SETL for various computers, including the
VAX 11/780 and 11/750, DEC 10/20, IBM/370, Ahmdahl/470 and CDC CYBER. Ada/Ed
can be implemented on any machine running SETL, and in fact runs on the first
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[1]Ada is a trademark of the U.S. Government, Ada Joint Program Office.
[2]UNIX is a trademark of Bell Laboratories.
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five of the above. In any of these the SETL text of Ada/Ed, which on one hand
can be viewed as a high level definition of the semantics of Ada, runs as a
production program, providing compilation and execution capability for the
complete ANSI Ada language.
The price paid for this very high-level approach is that NYU Ada/Ed is
spectacularly inefficient: on the VAX/780 Ada/Ed compiles Ada programs at the
rate of 30 to 60 lines/min. The execution speed is 3 to 5 source
statements/sec. This execution speed reflects the very abstract model of the
run-time that was chosen for the descriptive and definitional purposes; it is
not due to inefficiencies inherent in Ada.
Nevertheless Ada/Ed in its current form is usable as a checkout tool,
particularly for teaching and training purposes. Great effort has been put into
creating a friendly interface with good error messages and diagnostics. Use of
the system will tell how well this objective has been met. We believe the
system establishes new standards for effective error reporting.
Repeated references to 'the current version' will alert the reader that Ada/Ed
is an evolving project, and that subsequent releases can be expected to provide
better performance than this version. The current activities of the NYUADA
project include the construction of a much faster interpreter, also written in
SETL, and for which the current Ada/Ed system serves as a design prototype.
A final caveat is in order: a validated translator is not a correct translator.
In spite of the very thorough coverage of Ada provided by the Ada Compiler
Validation Capability (ACVC) errors can still be expected to exist in Ada/Ed.
Users are encouraged to report such errors to the NYUADA group. To make the
encouragement concrete, an updated version of Ada/Ed will be sent free of
charge to the first user who reports each bona fide error in Ada/Ed. Such error
reports should be accompanied by the output of an offending program, preferably
of size < 50 source lines.
The National Technical Information Service (NTIS) distributes the DEC VMS
version (name "Ada/Ed NYU"). NYU distributes the other versions, at a cost of
$500 for academic sites, $1250 for non-academic sites, and $100 for government
installations. Distribution tapes include the binary files needed to run the
system, help files, and a set of test programs. It is NOT necessary to obtain
the SETL system in order to run Ada/Ed. An order form for versions distributed
by NYU appears below.
For additional information, contact:
Edmond Schonberg
NYU-CIMS
251 Mercer Street
New York, New York 10012
Phone (212)460-7239, 460-7482
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Additional details concerning the various implementations are as follows:
DEC VAX-11
The VMS version runs under VMS V3.0 or later. The value of the system
configuration parameter VIRTUALPAGECNT must be at least 8192. It requires at
least one megabyte of physical memory. This version is distributed by NTIS:
National Technical Information Service
5285 Port Royal Road
Springfield, VA 22161
Phone: (703) 487-4650
Price: $300.00 (subject to change)
Nomenclature: Ada/Ed NYU
The UNIX version requires Berkeley 4.1 BSD, and also requires at least one
megabyte of physical memory.
470 UTS
An implementation for the 370 architecture using the Amdahl UTS operating
system is available. Contact Edmond Schonberg for further information.
IBM CMS
The version for IBM VM/CMS is distributed by NYU. It requires a virtual machine
size of at least five megabytes.
IBM MVS
The version for IBM MVS is distributed by NYU. It requires a storage region
size of at least five megabytes.
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AGREEMENT FOR USE OF THE NYU ADA/ED SYSTEM
Please send us one copy of the NYU Ada/Ed System for the configuration
described below. The only restriction placed on the use of the system is that
it may be used only at a single site (as indicated below). We enclose payment
of the subscription fee as indicated below by either check or purchase order.
(Checks should be made payable to New York University)
Send indicated version (one copy per order only, check desired configuration):
< > DEC VAX-11: Berkeley UNIX 4.1BSD
< > IBM: CMS Release 6 or SP
< > IBM: MVS
First-time Fee Schedule:
< > Academic $ 500.00
< > Non-academic $1250.00
< > Government $ 100.00
Maintenance Release Fee Schedule (as available):
< > Academic $250.00
< > Non-academic $500.00
< > Government $ 50.00
Send materials to (please print)
NAME: ____________________________________________
COMPANY: ____________________________________________
ADDRESS: ____________________________________________
CITY, STATE, ZIP: __________________________________________
AUTHORIZED SIGNATURE: ____________________________________
DATE: ____________________________________
PHONE: ____________________________________
Return this The Ada Project This request constitutes
form to: CIMS-251 Mercer Street an agreement for
New York, NY 10012 limited use.