AverStar (formerly Intermetrics, Inc.) was a
software
Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications.
The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...
company founded in
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...
,
Massachusetts
Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...
in 1969 by several veterans of
M.I.T.'s Instrumentation Laboratory who had worked on the software for
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...
's
Apollo Program
The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the United States human spaceflight program led by NASA, which Moon landing, landed the first humans on the Moon in 1969. Apollo followed Project Mercury that put the first Americans in sp ...
including the
Apollo Guidance Computer.
The company specialized in
compiler
In computing, a compiler is a computer program that Translator (computing), translates computer code written in one programming language (the ''source'' language) into another language (the ''target'' language). The name "compiler" is primaril ...
technology. It was responsible for the design and implementation of the
HAL/S programming language, used to write the Space Shuttle PASS (Primary Avionics Software System). It participated in the design effort leading to the
Ada programming language, designed the Red language, one of the finalists in the design competition, and wrote one of the first production-quality Ada compilers. The large-scale Ada 95 revision of the language was designed at Intermetrics.
Intermetrics merged with
Whitesmiths Ltd. in December 1988. In 1997, Intermetrics merged with
computer game developer
Looking Glass Studiosbr>
In 1998, Intermetrics acquired
Pacer Infotec, and changed its name to 'AverStar'. AverStar merged with the
Titan Corporation in March, 2000;
Titan was acquired by
L-3 Communications in 2005.
References
External links
{{Portal, Business
A history of Intermetrics some subjective notes on Intermetrics in the 1970s and 1980s
part of the Apollo Guidance Computer History Project
Defunct software companies of the United States
Ada (programming language)
Software companies based in Massachusetts
Defunct companies based in Massachusetts
Companies based in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Software companies established in 1969
Technology companies disestablished in 1998