ANCI C? What is that - a NASA invention?

[Ari Lukumies]

In a recent article in Vision Systems Design, March 2005, there is an
description of NASA's Shuttle heat-shield tiles measurement system,
consisting of - among others - an imaging computer HP xw6000 and a
National Instruments PCI-1424 frame grabber. It's said in the article
that "the software was written in ANCI C for portability". Is that a
typo, or does there exist such a beast, compromising the C standard
somehow? (This was the only occurrence of where the acronym ANCI was
mentioned in the article, there is no mention of ANSI.) The system is
basically a DSL 3-D imaging system, but I cannot see how it would have
been possible to create such a program in ANSI C, either.

Maybe Mr. Kirby could elaborate on that?

-atl-

 

[jacob navia]

In a recent article in Vision Systems Design, March 2005, there is an
description of NASA's Shuttle heat-shield tiles measurement system,
consisting of - among others - an imaging computer HP xw6000 and a
National Instruments PCI-1424 frame grabber. It's said in the article
that "the software was written in ANCI C for portability". Is that a
typo, or does there exist such a beast, compromising the C standard
somehow? (This was the only occurrence of where the acronym ANCI was
mentioned in the article, there is no mention of ANSI.)

This is a typo obviously.

The system is

basically a DSL 3-D imaging system, but I cannot see how it would have
been possible to create such a program in ANSI C, either.

Why not?

I do not see any problems

 

[Eric Sosman]

[...] It's said in the article
that "the software was written in ANCI C for portability". Is that a
typo, or does there exist such a beast, compromising the C standard
somehow? [...]

An obvious typo. Should have been "ANCI S."

http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/ms/departments/sia/Sbook/background.html

 

[Lawrence Kirby]

In a recent article in Vision Systems Design, March 2005, there is an
description of NASA's Shuttle heat-shield tiles measurement system,
consisting of - among others - an imaging computer HP xw6000 and a
National Instruments PCI-1424 frame grabber. It's said in the article
that "the software was written in ANCI C for portability". Is that a
typo, or does there exist such a beast, compromising the C standard
somehow?

It looks like a typo to me. It even sounds like ANSI.

(This was the only occurrence of where the acronym ANCI was
mentioned in the article, there is no mention of ANSI.) The system is
basically a DSL 3-D imaging system, but I cannot see how it would have
been possible to create such a program in ANSI C, either.

Maybe Mr. Kirby could elaborate on that?

I'm no expert on imaging systems, but it is perfectly possible to write
graphical data manipulation and storage code in standard C, but not the
input and output/display code for anything other than a very simplistic
I/O model.

Lawrence

 

[James Daughtry]

Looks like a typo. I do recall a system called ANCI that supports C for
a military instruction set standard, but if it's written "for
portability", I would wager that they meant ANSI.

 

[Rouben Rostamian]

In a recent article in Vision Systems Design, March 2005, there is an
description of NASA's Shuttle heat-shield tiles measurement system,
consisting of - among others - an imaging computer HP xw6000 and a
National Instruments PCI-1424 frame grabber. It's said in the article
that "the software was written in ANCI C for portability".

"Portability" in this context means ability to travel in orbit
at high rates of speed. Use ANCI C^2 if traveling near the
speed of light.