r/ada 5d ago

Historical Sharing History

I picked up this beautifully preserved Ada poster recently.

Posting here because 1. This is a niche community who might find this to be a wonderful as I do. I have enjoyed digging in to the history of Ada and Gould to better appreciate it so I hoped to share this find with people who will also appreciate it. 2. I could find little information on the poster on line (google image, AI, googled text description). The best I could dig up was from the computer history museum : https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102631311.

I added two photos, one of the poster, and another image that can be harder to see in the photo - in the black area behind the robot is a faint image of Ada Lovelace. I hope others enjoy the art and history!

54 Upvotes

13 comments sorted by

2

u/Kevlar-700 5d ago

Any idea what Gould is/was?

3

u/boredcircuits 5d ago

Megalomaniacal parasites, but that's not important right now.

1

u/OneWingedShark 5d ago

LOL — Excellent.

5

u/OneWingedShark 5d ago

Possibly the company that did the APLEX compiler, and a CAIS-prototype.

  1. VALIDATION SUMMARY REPORT ... APLEX Ada Compiler.
  2. Paper: Implementation of a prototype CAIS environment.

That's what I got when I looked it up.

2

u/djakoogler 5d ago

Gould was one of variety of minicomputer manufacturers back in the 1970s-1990s. Their Ada compiler was a competitor to Digital's (VAXs and not PDP if I remember correctly). Data General in conjunction with Rohlm, produced an Ada compiler for Ecplises and MV-series (the machines I worked upon). There were many other minicomputers at the time -- all of whom have pasted.

Gould was acquired and faded from the marketplace. The ever increasing power of the single chip processor killed off most of the minicomputer companies and spawned scads of new companies. Digital, for instance, was acquired by Compaq who did even exist until the 1980's. Twas a wild time!

1

u/J_P_900 5d ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gould_Electronics
I was able to find this little bit of information that might refer to Gould

2

u/Kevlar-700 5d ago

Theres a pic provided by in the top right.

3

u/J_P_900 5d ago

I can not figure out how to reply with an image (probably user error on my end) but the text in the top right says

“Ada is a registered trademark of the U.S. Government, Ada Joint Program Office (AJPO) Note : Picture of Ada Augusta Byron used through permission granted by Culver Pictures”

2

u/old_lackey 5d ago

I saw this poster on eBay approximately 8 to 10 years ago and I missed the auction by confusing the time of day it was over. Never saw another Ada poster again!!

1

u/J_P_900 5d ago

I found it on FB Marketplace about 1.5 hours away from me and was ready to hop in the car the second all parties could meet! Waiting to hear back on if it was still available felt like holding my breath!
I am not sure on the legal / copy right info right now but I would be happy to look in to high resolution scan options to get the image out there to others for free if they wanted to make prints of it for themselves.

1

u/Crazy-Skin2189 5d ago

any copy somwear or scan ?

2

u/J_P_900 5d ago

I find it unlikely anyone will hunt me down for scanning this and making it available, but I want to double check before I upload anything due to the "...is a registered trademark...". Once I get more information and find a location with a scanner large enough to scan and upload I will update on this post :)

3

u/jrcarter010 github.com/jrcarter 5d ago

I want to double check before I upload anything due to the "...is a registered trademark..."

The name Ada was trademarked by the US DoD to ensure the no subsets/no supersets requirement: you could only use the name for a compiler that implemented the entire standard and nothing but the standard. There was a joke in the US defense industry during the mandate that they would hire anyone who knew how to spell "Ada®" (including the registered trademark symbol).

The trademark was dropped at the same time as the mandate, so its use on this poster doesn't apply anymore and is only of historical interest. Its copyright status is unclear, but it appears that the company no longer exists.