Many of the world's leading companies rely on MicroAPL's tools and consultancy services
for mission-critical software projects, covering a wide range of application areas and
processor architectures. Examples of projects we have worked on include:
Porting major suite of IBM mainframe assembler to C
On behalf of a US client, MicroAPL ported a major commercial application, comprising over 300,000 lines of mainframe assembler code plus thousands of macros, to C. Included in the application was a proprietary scripting language which generated mainframe opcodes, which MicroAPL rewrote to be architecture-neutral. The converted application runs on a 64-bit Linux platform.
Re-hosting of industrial control system
This project involved creating custom tools and providing software to run 680x0 opcodes on modern x86 and ARM-based processors, for a very large mission-critical industrial control system. The customer was a household-name US corporation.
Re-hosting of telecoms application to x86 Linux
MicroAPL developed a custom tool to allow a large European multinational port a specialised telecoms application from the PowerPC to the x86 architectures.
Conversion of 8-bit assembler application to C
MicroAPL was engaged by a medium-sized US equipment manufacturer to convert an application (originally written in assembler for an 8-bit microcontroller) to C, and to port the code to new ARM-based hardware. The application was a hand-held testing device.
We have subsequently carried out similar projects for a number of other clients.
Re-targeting Pascal compiler from 68K to x86
As part of a project to upgrade the computerized control system for one of Europe's major rail transport networks, MicroAPL was engaged to re-write the code-generation portion of a Pascal compiler with proprietary language extensions. This allowed the applications software to be re-targeted from proprietary 680x0-based hardware which is no longer supported, to modern industry-standard x86 systems.
Porting of medium-sized standalone mainframe application (financial services) to C
This was a fairly simple application which generated user-specified reports from a large DB2 database. It comprised approximately 53,000 lines of IBM mainframe assembler, interfacing to DB2 and ESAM files. A complicating factor was that the original program generated mainframe opcodes at runtime (depending on what the user specified for the report contents), so MicroAPL engineers rewrote that part of the logic to make it portable. The converted code runs successfully on both mainframe and Linux platforms.
Port of high-reliability storage firmware to PowerPC
One of the world's most successful storage equipment manufacturers used PortAsm to migrate its range of high-performance, high-reliability products to a new processor architecture. As well as providing the translation tools which make this possible, MicroAPL was also involved in customization and porting advice to ensure the success of this project, which was critical to the development of the next-generation product range of a multi-billion dollar business.
Embedded tools development
MicroAPL has been engaged to develop assembly-language development tools for a wide range of embedded and desktop environments. These tools are used worldwide in one of the leading embedded development toolsets.
Tools development for Motorola/Freescale Semiconductor (now NXP)
In 1997, Motorola commissioned MicroAPL to develop a ColdFire back-end to PortAsm/68K, in order to produce a tool to allow customers with large investment in 68K assembler code to migrate to ColdFire. In addition, Motorola has licensed the translator for distribution to Motorola customers worldwide. Subsequently, Motorola commissioned and licensed further tools from MicroAPL, including CF68KLib, PortAsm/68K for M·CORE, and an implementation of PortAsm/DSP. More recently, MicroAPL developed the CFInit point-and-click initialization tool on behalf of Freescale Semiconductor.
Porting of legacy telecoms software to PowerPC
On behalf of a major manufacturer of telecoms infrastructure equipment, with a huge installed base of software developed over many years, MicroAPL developed a custom translation tool to convert code from an obsolete processor architecture to run on modern PowerPC processors.
Custom embedded CISC emulator for MIPS architecture
A leading consumer electronics company commissioned MicroAPL to write a CISC processor emulator program for incorporation in future MIPS-based consumer products. Written to a stringent specification in terms of speed, memory requirement, and fidelity, the emulator is capable of running both applications and system software.
Embedded software for controlling high-brightness LEDs
Freescale Semiconductor Inc (now NXP) commissioned MicroAPL to develop control software for a set of boards designed for controlling very high brightness LEDs using the industry-standard DMX512/RDM and DALI protocols. Further information can be found here