ADA - a very complex but powerful compiler language

Used also for military purposes ...

:... but that's comparable to using knifes to kill someone vs cut tomatoes with it, you can do many things with the same object !

ADA was developed in the 1970s, the U.S. Dept. of Defense was looking for a more powerful programming language and their new development were influenced by PASCAL also (so source code looks a bit like a Pascal source code).
There were not many ADA implementations for CP/M available, but at least the Janus ADA compiler was really usable.

To get a deeper knowledge of details of the history, please visit the Wikipedia entry here.

Here are some links to get in touch with the "real" stuff:

SuperSoft (Maranatha) ADA Compiler 2.1 can be found here or as a single zip file here (local mirror), a scanned manual is located here. An early version (v1.20) can be downloaded now also here (local mirror). Also, the very first version (v1.00) can be found here.

RR Software's Janus ADA 1.50 Compiler is located here (local mirror) or here (there is also a version 1.45 here).

A comparison can be found here (thanks to atarimagazines.com), or locally mirrored as RTF file.

Last but not least, an UCSD p-code compiler named "L1-ADA" exists also, very old, originally it comes from a Terak machine. In this archive, I have included a related page from the Terak User's Group Library Catalog, too.

An old implementation of a DOS ADA compiler 1.91 from Arthur Vargas Lopes can be found at Simtel. There is one named Artek ADA compiler 1.25, which I have seen on some "abandonware" pages, but I am not sure about the copyright status of this one (try Google).

An ADA '83 Interpreter as a MS-DOS version (binaries and source from 1993) named ADA/ED can be found here, SMALLAda (1991) can be found at the same place, also here.

Today it is possible to use a more modern version (ADA 95) for free. Just take a look at the GNU ADA Project page or here at libre.adacore.com.

Jim Rogers made also a very good introduction here (recommended!).

Last but not least, Aonix has released a limited, but free version of their commercial product, more infos can be found at their website.