ASpecT

ASpecT is a strict functional language originally developed by Dr. Jörn von Holten at the University of Bremen and delivered in the form of a compiler that puts out C code. It implements a subset of Algebraic Specifications of Abstract Datatypes, which is basically the idea that abstract data types (also known as ADT's) are defined only by the behaviours of its members, completely independent from any implementation specifics. The ASpecT system offers overloading facilities and a source-level debugger. Over time the language gained features more in line with other functional languages than that of the original ASAD idea including subsorting, functionals, and restricted polymorphism.

The system was ported to a huge number of platforms in its day including AIX, Apple A/UX, Amiga, Atari ST/TT, Linux, NeXT, OS/2, SGI and SunOS (both Sun-3 and SPARC), but during the latter years of development only the OS/2 and SunOS SPARC versions were kept up to date officially while one Universität Bremen student kept an Amiga version alive as well. Please note that all of the original distribution sites and its mirrors for the ASpecT package were closed down years ago so only the three packages last supported are easily found and they may not be represent the last code released, simply the last code still to be found on the net.

daVinci
When Dr. von Holten left the U. Bremen in 1994 all development of ASpecT was dropped and the university for the most part stopped using the system, with one notable exceptions, a couple of students called Michael Fröhlich and Mattias Werner developed an interactive graph visualization system called daVinci. While that application used some C glue and Tcl for the graphical interface daVinci was primarily coded in ASpecT and with tens of thousands of lines of ASpecT code it was at the time one of very few large projects actually written in a functional language at the time. DaVinci sported some unusual automation features that generated quite a lot of interest and in December 2000 a company called b-novative GmbH was formed to develop and sell the package as a commercial product under the name daVinci Presenter, however that sold only in limited numbers and the company had stopped operating in late 2003.

Version

 * Last known version: 2.0 (1993-01-27/1993-10-30)
 * Note that it is shipped in two files, you will need both the "common.tgz" and the machine specific (in this ca "os2.tgz") to work.


 * Prerequisites
 * EMX 0.9 or later

Links

 * Archive of ASpecT 2.0 for OS/2 and SunOS 4
 * Archive of the daVinci Presenter page at b-novative GmbH - (2004) - via Archive.org

Publications

 * Jean Baillie: An Introduction to the Algebraic Specification of Abstract Data Types
 * Demonstration of the interactive Graph Visualization System daVinci (1995)
 * Michael Fröhlich and Mattias Werner: The interactive Graph Visualization System daVinci V1.2

Authors

 * Jörn von Holten
 * Universität Bremen
 * Helge Gercken (OS/2 port)