some general Ada questions ...

[Kris.Hermans at cs.kuleuven.ac.be (Kris Hermans)]

Hi all !

I'm Kris Hermans, a scientific researcher from the university of Leuven
(Belgium) and our computer dept. is very interested in GNAT/RTEMS.  So I
downloaded and installed version 4.0.0 and compiled and executed
hello_world_ada and some other tests with success.

Now we want to examine this system more closely, but therefore we lack
some information:

1. The version I downloaded is entirely written in C.  But the C user's
guide states that there is also an Ada version (Page 3).  Can I get this
version also for free ? (or is there some academic license ?)

2. However, with the version I have, I can do Ada-development.  But I
don't understand it: Do I have to call the C API for tasks and
synchronization and timing facilities ?  Or can I use Ada Tasks, protected
objects, delay statemenmts  ( in this case: are they somehow mapped to the
C-API ?  Is there any docs available ?)

3. How does GNAT/RTEMS support the real-time annexes in Ada ?  Is it
implemented ?

4. I want to do serial and parallel communication on my target (i386 with
pc386 -- I want to control a robot with it)).  However, this bsp only
supports serial interfacing. Is there someone who has extended it for
parallel ports ?  Or can someone give me some hints on doing this myself ?

Thanks for your quick responses,

Kris Hermans.