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 ...

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 Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC) was a digital computer produced for the Apollo program that was installed on board each Apollo command module (CM) and Apollo Lunar Module (LM). The AGC provided computation and electronic interfaces for guidanc ...

. 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 HAL/S (''High-order Assembly Language/Shuttle'') is a real-time aerospace programming language compiler and cross-compiler for avionics applications used by NASA and associated agencies ( JPL, etc.). It has been used in many U.S. space projects s ...

programming language, used to write the Space Shuttle PASS (Primary Avionics Software System). It participated in the design effort leading to the

Ada Ada may refer to: Arts and entertainment * '' Ada or Ardor: A Family Chronicle'', a novel by Vladimir Nabokov Film and television * Ada, a character in 1991 movie '' Armour of God II: Operation Condor'' * '' Ada... A Way of Life'', a 2008 Bollywo ...

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 Whitesmiths Ltd. was a software company founded in New York City by P. J. Plauger, Mark Krieger and Gabriel Pham, and last located in Westford, Massachusetts. It sold a Unix-like operating system called Idris, as well as the first commercial C ...

Ltd. in December 1988. In 1997, Intermetrics merged with

computer game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual feedback from a display device, mo ...

developer

Looking Glass Studios Looking Glass Studios, Inc. (formerly Blue Sky Productions and LookingGlass Technologies, Inc.) was an American video game developer based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The company was founded by Paul Neurath with Ned Lerner as Blue Sky Produ ...

br>
In 1998, Intermetrics acquired Pacer Infotec, and changed its name to 'AverStar'. AverStar merged with the

Titan Corporation Titan Corporation was a United States–based company that started as a telecommunications defense contractor with its headquarters located in San Diego, California. It was acquired by L-3 Communications on June 3, 2005 for $2.65 billion and op ...

in March, 2000; Titan was acquired by

L-3 Communications L3 Technologies, formerly L-3 Communications Holdings, was an American company that supplied command and control, communications, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance ( C3ISR) systems and products, avionics, ocean products, training ...

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