Ada for the Intel 432 Microcomputer

Publication Summary

Ada represents a new era in language standards and software portability. It is the primary language of Intel's new micromain frame. which directly supports many of its features. Intel Corporation intends to establish itself as an early center of Adam technology by using the language as the primary development and application language for the new iAPX 432 architecture. An important motive behind Intel's selection of Ada for these purposes is its relationship to the underlying 432 architecture: several Ada language features are either supported directly by the architecture or are more easily implemented because of it. The architecture supports such important Ada features as access protection for packages, automatic maintenance of activation record stacks, "on-the-fly" garbage collection, and multiprocessor support mechanisms that significantly ease the burden of implementing concurrent multitasking. Although the 432 closely supports many Ada features, its design was independent of the Ada effort until the end of 1979. However, both Ada and the 432 address the widely reported problems of large-scale software development; the architects of the 432 and of Ada were keenly aware of these problems and the proposed solutions. Since the common goal of both design teams was to decrease software development costs, it is not surprising that the 432 and Ada are similar.

Country	United States
Language	English (United States)
Related Person(s)	(AUTHOR)  Stephen Zeigler (AUTHOR)  Nicole Allegre (AUTHOR)  Robert Johnson (AUTHOR)  James Morris (AUTHOR)  Gregory Burns (OWNER)  IEEE Computer Society (SUBMITTER)  Submitter
Copyright	This record contains textual material that is copyright ©; 1981 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. All rights reserved. (see document for full copyright)

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This record contains textual material that is copyright ©; 1981 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. All rights reserved. Contact the IEEE Computer Society http://www.computer.org/ (714-821-8380) for copies of the complete work that was the source of this textual material and for all use beyond that as a record from the SPI Database.

Ada for the Intel 432 Microcomputer

Stephen Zeigler, Nicole Allegre, Robert Johnson, and James Morris Intel Corporation Gregory Burns

Standard Telecommunication Laboratories

Ada represents a new era in language standards and software portability. It is the primary language of Intel's new micromain frame. which directly supports many of its features.

Intel Corporation intends to establish itself as an early center of Adam technology by using the language as the primary development and application language for the new iAPX 432 architecture. An important motive behind Intel's selection of Ada for these purposes is its relationship to the underlying 432 architecture: several Ada language features are either supported directly by the architecture or are more easily implemented because of it. The architecture supports such important Ada features as access protection for packages, automatic maintenance of activation record stacks, "on-the-fly" garbage collection, and multiprocessor support mechanisms that significantly ease the burden of implementing concurrent multitasking.

Although the 432 closely supports many Ada features, its design was independent of the Ada effort until the end of 1979. However, both Ada and the 432 address the widely reported problems of large-scale software development; the architects of the 432 and of Ada were keenly aware of these problems and the proposed solutions. Since the common goal of both design teams was to decrease software development costs, it is not surprising that the 432 and Ada are similar.

Initial 432 software systems will rely on established host computers as the primary vehicles for program development. The 432 Ada compiler and the companion linker (link editor) will execute on a host computer. Linked modules will be shipped to an Intellec Series 111 system that is connected by a high-speed link to a 432, on which execution will occur.

Object-oriented architectures

The 432 is an object-oriented architectures The address space visible to a 432-resident process cannot be accessed as a single, contiguous block of memory, as in most classical computers. Rather, the memory must be considered a collection of smaller address spaces, termed objects, each of which consists of a contiguous block of memory. An explanation of the advantages of this memory structures is outside the scope of this article; for present purposes, it is only necessary to understand that a 432 process perceives its memory as a collection of objects rather than as a single, contiguous block of memory units.

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