Editing COMAL (section)

===Microcomputer versions===
In 1978, Christensen began to adapt COMAL such that it would run on [[microcomputer]]s, which were becoming available. He was worried that without such an implementation he would be required to teach and use BASIC again as Danish schools acquired the new machines. By 1980, a version of COMAL developed in conjunction with a college group was able to run on the [[Zilog Z80]], and thus ''COMAL 80'' was released.{{sfn|Christensen|1985|p=4}}

Around the same time, a Danish firm introduced the [[Comet (computer)|Comet]], a very capable microcomputer for the time, which would be the first machine to run a version of what would look like the later COMAL releases. Christensen subsequently stepped back from COMAL development around 1980-81, which was handed over to groups including UniComal,<ref name="UniComal 3.11 IBM PC" /> started by Mogens Kjaer, who had written to Christensen with critiques of COMAL and subsequently [[porting|ported]] it to the [[Commodore PET]] for release 0.14. At this time, Danish schools insisted that COMAL be available on any microcomputer they purchased.<ref name="The Story of COMAL" />

In the early 1980s, [[Apple Inc.|Apple Computer]] won a contract to supply [[Apple II]] computers running [[CP/M]] and COMAL to Irish secondary schools.<ref name="Moynihan"/> It was popular for education<ref name="Brady"/> and some textbooks were locally written.<ref name="Kelly"/><ref name="LundyOSullivan1990"/>

In 1984, [[Acornsoft]] released a COMAL implementation, by David Christensen, Jim Warwick and David Evers, for their 8-bit [[BBC Micro]] and [[Acorn Electron]] computers (with a manual by Paul Christensen and Roy Thornton<ref name="Thornton"/>)

Between 1984-1987, [[TeleNova]], a subsidiary of the industrial arm of the Swedish Telecoms system, 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/M-86]] 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.<ref name="LundyOSullivan1990" /> They matched and compared COMAL with [[BBC BASIC|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.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Laine |first1=Heather |title=Gracemount High School |url=https://livecode.com/gracemount-high-school/ |website=LiveCode |access-date=29 March 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240329213122/https://livecode.com/gracemount-high-school/ |archive-date=29 March 2024 |date=12 February 2015 |url-status=live}}</ref>