VMS Help PASCAL, Attributes, Allocation, COMMON  *Conan The Librarian (sorry for the slow response - running on an old VAX)

  The COMMON attribute specifies that storage for  a  variable  be
  allocated in an overlaid program section called a common block.

  Syntax:

     COMMON [[(identifier)]]

  The 'identifier' indicates the name of the common block.  It  is
  passed  in  uppercase  on  OpenVMS  systems.   If  you  omit the
  identifier, the name of the variable is used as the name of  the
  common block.

  This attribute allows you to share variables with  other  Compaq
  languages, such as FORTRAN.

  See the  "Compaq  Pascal  Language  Reference  Manual"  for  the
  complete description of using the COMMON attribute.