COMAL

Updated on Dec 09, 2024

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Paradigm structured Typing discipline strong		First appeared 1973

Designed by Benedict Løfstedt and Børge R. Christensen

COMAL (Common Algorithmic Language) is a computer programming language developed in Denmark by Benedict Løfstedt and Børge R. Christensen in 1973. COMAL was one of the few programming languages that was available for and comfortably usable on 8-bit home computers.

The "COMAL 80 PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE REPORT" contains the formal definition of the language.

Design

COMAL was created as a mixture of the prevalent educational programming languages of the time, BASIC, Pascal, and, at least in the Commodore and Compis versions, the turtle graphics of Logo. The language was meant to introduce structured programming elements in an environment where BASIC would normally be used.

History

In the early 1980s, Apple Computer won a contract to supply Apple II computers running CP/M and COMAL to Irish secondary schools.

In 1984 Acornsoft released a COMAL implementation, by Paul Christensen and Roy Thorton, for their 8-bit BBC Micro and Acorn Electron computers.

Between 1984-1987 TeleNova, a subsidiary of the industrial arm of the Swedish Telecoms system, Teli industrier manufactured a desktop PC called "Compis" for the educational sector. An enhanced version of COMAL was supplied as the standard programming language for this PC. Versions were created for both CP/M86 and MS-DOS. The latter version is available for Windows XP. The (Swedish) reference manual is ISBN 91-24-40022-X

In 1990 Thomas Lundy and Rory O'Sullivan produced the definitive text on COMAL Programming. They matched and compared COMAL with BBC Structured Basic.

As of 2016 COMAL is still actively in use as an educational programming language. Some high schools in the United Kingdom continue to use it to teach the subject of Computing.