MicroAPL releases enhanced porting solution from 683xx to Motorola's PowerPC Family
26 May 1999 -- In partnership with Motorola, MicroAPL Ltd today announced the release of Version 4.0 of PortAsm/68K for PowerPC, an optimising source-level assembler porting tool which translates 683xx, CPU32, and CPU32+ family assembly language to run on Motorola's advanced PowerPC RISC processors.
Aimed primarily at high-end embedded applications, PortAsm/68K for PowerPC offers a smooth upgrade path for existing 683xx users seeking the improved performance attainable with the PowerPC architecture, without the need to rewrite code originally developed in assembly language. This means that customers with a large investment in legacy 683xx assembler can rapidly and reliably take advantage of Motorola's range of high-performance PowerPC embedded processors.
The new Version 4.0 of PortAsm/68K for PowerPC has been developed in response to customer demand for faster translation times, an increased range of supported source assembler syntax options, and compatibility with the latest PowerPC toolsets. Version 4.0 provides improved support for Wind River Tornado and VxWorks, and adds the Mentor Graphics XRAY debugger and compiler/linker to the comprehensive list of supported PowerPC target toolsets. It also provides an increased range of code-generation options and enhanced analysis of register usage to give more efficient translation of routines with complex code flow.
"Rapid acceptance of the high performance of the PowerPC family has highlighted a real requirement for a reliable and user-friendly transition tool to this high performance architecture for our traditional 68K customers," said Tino Spadaro, Operations Manager, Motorola Networking Systems Division. "MicroAPL's PortAsm/68K provides exactly that solution."
Richard Nabavi, Managing Director of MicroAPL Ltd, commented: "The high-end embedded market has traditionally been dominated by Motorola's 68K architecture, and many companies have huge investments in 683xx software. PortAsm/68K makes it possible to leap to the next generation PowerPC technology without costly, time-consuming rewriting of legacy code, and we have worked closely with major clients to ensure that Version 4.0 provides the smoothest possible translation path."
The new version of PortAsm/68K is the most advanced implementation of MicroAPL's powerful CISC-to-RISC translation technology, which has been widely used to port 680x0 and x86 assembly language to run native on PowerPC, ColdFire and other CPUs. PortAsm is an optimizing source-level translation tool, which carries out an extensive analysis of the source program to eliminate unnecessary side effects and to produce an efficient equivalent in the target environment. Source-level debugging can be carried out on the translated code. In the embedded market, PortAsm has been used for major projects in telecoms, industrial automation, enterprise storage systems, aviation, defense, and consumer electronics. Amongst the many well-known desktop applications ported to the PowerPC architecture using PortAsm are Word Perfect for Macintosh, and HyperCard, a product of Apple Computer, Inc.
MicroAPL Ltd was founded in 1979, and is based in London, England. It specializes in translation tools for moving existing software to the new generation of RISC processors, as well as providing consultancy services in systems development and cross-platform porting. Demonstration software and further information on PortAsm and other MicroAPL products and services can be found on the MicroAPL web site:http://www.microapl.com
-- Ends --