I came up with the idea of PC-Com in December of 2000.  At the time I was making an add-on program for AOL called AOL Tools.  I would go into some programming chat rooms on AOL to get advice and opinions.  There used to be programs called progs and punters that were used for AOL.  Some people may remember them, but after many of these progs lost popularity, people starting making programs called Chat Commands.  With a Chat Commands program, someone would send a command to a chat room, and the program would read it and perform the action.  For example, someone may send ".load winamp" or ".ignore Screenname."  These programs were fun to use, but they weren't that useful.  You couldn't make your own commands, and they were slow.  The programs were basically made to show off how much power someone had by sending commands to the chat room.  I was amazed when I first saw these Chat Command programs, but after a while I thought, "Why aren't there programs like Chat Commands for Windows?   Wouldn't it be easy to just type a command into Windows and press Enter?"  After some thinking I realized how useful a program like this could be, so I went to work on it.

At first I thought the program would only be useful to power users or fast typists, so I wanted a technical name for it.  After some thinking I came up with PC-Com and just stuck with the name.   I started programming PC-Com in December of 2000.  The first version wasn't anything spectacular.  I finished it in three weeks.

PC-Com 1.00 was just a basic program launcher, although there were three skins for it.  There was no AutoComplete/Popup list, no commands (search, shutdown comp, dictionary, etc), no notes, no macros, and not really any options.   The program installed with a nearly empty Command List, and the only way to add keywords was to manually type out the target.  You couldn't right-click a file or folder and click "Add keyword to PC-Com."

- screenshot from PC-Com 1.00

After I wrote the first version, I was satisfied with it.  It gave me quick access to programs and websites, but I knew it was missing something.  My friends kept asking me to put an AutoComplete feature in PC-Com, and I did eventually because it made the program a lot better.  But the AutoComplete didn't seem good enough.  Since PC-Com was based entirely on keywords, I wanted users to see the keywords often, making it easier to remember them.  I started working on an AutoComplete list, much like the one used in Windows.  The difference was that the list in PC-Com would show about six different keywords and highlight the matching keyword as the user was typing.  This way the person could press enter at any time to launch the highlighted keyword.

As you can tell, PC-Com has grown a lot since the first version.  It now supports macros, functions, a file search utility, target location for keywords, preset commands and letter commands (search, dictionary), make your own commands, multiple skins with color options, notes with reminders, QuickTab, and a lot of other stuff.

For the first four years, there was a 30-day trial version of PC-Com.  When a user downloaded the program, he or she would have 30 days to use it.  Once 30 days were over, the version would lock up, and the user could either uninstall it or purchase the program and continue using it.  This method didn't turn out that well.  In four years, only about two hundred people actually purchased PC-Com.  This made me realize that a huge percentage of people only download software if it's free.  Even if a program is just a few dollars, very few people will buy it unless they find it absolutely necessary.  For a while I thought about giving up on PC-Com because I was losing money over it, but fortunately I had a small group of die-hard fans that were begging for more features.  In June of 2005, I struggled to make a comeback with the next version.  I changed the hotkey to the semicolon (previously it was the Pause/Break key), I added a very detailed tutorial and several new features, and I changed the structure of PC-Com.  Instead of the old, time-limited version, I added a Basic version and Pro version.  The Basic version was free, and the Pro version was $9.95, just as it is today.

After six years, PC-Com is still under development and closely reaching it's 8th version.  The newest feature that was added to the program was QuickTab, and the feature before that was the Insert Text Function.   I haven't decided exactly what's coming next, but I would like to see the Macro Recorder become more like a scripting language, where variables and If statements can be used.  This would give power users and small businesses the ultimate automation experience.  Since PC-Com is a command-line toolbar, the amount of features it can have is almost unlimited.  I don't want the program to become bloated with features, but I still try to add shortcuts and options that help users interact with their computer in the fastest possible way.

Thanks for checking out PC-Com.  I really appreciate it.  If you have any ideas for new features or improvements, feel free to e-mail me.