Commo is a

telecommunications Telecommunication, often used in its plural form or abbreviated as telecom, is the transmission of information over a distance using electronic means, typically through cables, radio waves, or other communication technologies. These means of ...

program Program (American English; also Commonwealth English in terms of computer programming and related activities) or programme (Commonwealth English in all other meanings), programmer, or programming may refer to: Business and management * Program m ...

which was written and maintained from 1989 to 1998 by Fred P. Brucker. It was a macro-driven package and could be customized by the user. The program, written in optimized

assembly language In computing, assembly language (alternatively assembler language or symbolic machine code), often referred to simply as assembly and commonly abbreviated as ASM or asm, is any low-level programming language with a very strong correspondence bet ...

and distributed as

shareware Shareware is a type of proprietary software that is initially shared by the owner for trial use at little or no cost. Often the software has limited functionality or incomplete documentation until the user sends payment to the software developer. ...

, was small and fast. The macro

language Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...

used by Commo was simple, with assembly language-like statements surrounded by

curly braces A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. They come in four main pairs of shapes, as given in the box to the right, which also gives their n ...

. It offered the ability to control most aspects of the

terminal Terminal may refer to: Computing Hardware * Computer terminal, a set of primary input and output devices for a computer * Terminal (electronics), a device for joining electrical circuits together ** Battery terminal, electrical contact used to ...

. For instance, the following macro would reconfigure the

Alt Alt or ALT may refer to: Abbreviations for words * Alt account, an alternative online identity also known as a sock puppet account * Alternate character, in online gaming * Alternate route, type of highway designation * Alternating group, mathem ...

-X key to display a

dialog box In computing, a dialog box (also simply dialog) is a graphical control element in the form of a small window that communicates information to the user and prompts them for a response. Dialog boxes are classified as " modal" or "modeless", dep ...

, allowing the user to confirm before exiting the program: : The program's macro and configuration files were free-form text which could be edited with any

text editor A text editor is a type of computer program that edits plain text. An example of such program is "notepad" software (e.g. Windows Notepad). Text editors are provided with operating systems and software development packages, and can be used to c ...

. This led to popularity among those who wanted to be able to configure the program. Fred Brucker actively provided support for

screen readers A screen reader is a form of assistive technology (AT) that renders text and image content as speech or braille output. Screen readers are essential to blindness, blind people, and are useful to visually impaired people, Illiteracy, illiterate, ...

to work with COMMO, which made it a popular program for the

visually impaired Visual or vision impairment (VI or VIP) is the partial or total inability of visual perception. In the absence of treatment such as corrective eyewear, assistive devices, and medical treatment, visual impairment may cause the individual difficul ...

. The Powermacros add-on made COMMO one of the first Trade Wars 2002 'helper' programs. MacroBBS was a

Bulletin board system A bulletin board system (BBS), also called a computer bulletin board service (CBBS), is a computer server running list of BBS software, software that allows users to connect to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, the user perfor ...

written entirely out of COMMO macros. Mr. Brucker released the last version of COMMO on 25 December 1998.

References

External links

commo75.zip
— 7.5 shareware archive (1997)
commo77.zip
— (COMMO) 7.7, final version (1998) Communication software Terminal emulators DOS software {{network-software-stub

See also

References

External links