The golden age of Spanish software and Spanish free software

Spanish software lived a golden era between 1983 and 1992, when in Spain there was a boom where many professional and amateur developers sold their own programs, especially video games for 8-bit Spectrum machines. It seems that software and computing became democratized and began to reach the masses, so many saw great business here and the era of "made in Spain" software began.

This historical stage was christened the Golden Age of Spanish Software, and placed Spain, after the United Kingdom, as one of the largest European software producers, believe it or not. In this period, companies were created that would later disappear or change when the leap from 8-bit to 16-bit architecture was made. Some successful Spanish companies of this time are Indescomp, Dinamic Software, Topo Soft, Made in Spain, Opera Soft, Zigurat, Alcachofa Soft, etc.

But it is not only proprietary software that has a place in this country, and although the golden age has passed, there are also interesting free software projects, and I am not only referring to the distributions that we have talked about so many times and that some autonomous communities developed taking advantage of the European subsidies for this type of project and that today there are few. There are also great examples of software and even operating systems made in Spain and that are free, such as the great eyeOS of Pau García Milá, a fairly well-regarded operating system in today's cloud age.

The Menéame website itself is another great free project, and in which we have sometimes appeared on the cover for highly viewed articles. But they are not the only ones, perhaps you also know others like KAlgebra and KGeography, free educational projects. They are joined by other programs to control forest fires, programs for accessibility, and much more. Continuing with the examples, we find Zentyal, a Linux server for SMEs, gvSIG as a geographic information system, OpenDNIe for the electronic DNI technology, etc.

Do you know more? Leave your comments ...


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  1.   Ashtoroth said

    Now we live a second golden age with new releases ...

  2.   Jimmy olano said

    IT SEEMS FAIR to look much further and observe that the Spanish have made GREAT CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE BASES of computing: the story is not mine, I am an old man but not so much, but from «Macluskey» and I quote:

    ---------
    A curiosity: one of the first "serious" Teleprocessing Monitors (previous by several years to IBM's CICS), was the PCL. The acronym PCL stands for Line Control Program (in Spanish, yes), since it was developed in the IBM laboratory in Barcelona, ​​by a team led by the Dutch Rainer Berk, under the client's specifications, and working side by side with them, and that it was installed for the first time in La Caixa d'Estalvis i Pensions, around no less than 1964.

    This program, which evolved and improved over the years, was used during the early days in all Spanish banks that began to make small steps with their teleprocessing in the sixties and first seventies, since it did not begin until at least 1970 or 71 IBM to offer CICS in Spain (and IMS / DC is later in five years or more).

    Do not expect a link to a Wikipedia article talking about PCL, or a link to any other site talking about PCL… There isn't! It's like it never existed. It was a Spanish milestone in computer science ... and practically nobody knows it, nor is documentation found, apart from in the memory of some old rockers. And, although not so much, the same happens, for example, with another great Spanish innovation of the time (in addition, this was completely Spanish): the Special Data Transmission Network (RETD), which was the first worldwide network for the transmission of data. packages, and on which oblivion has also fallen, although fortunately Jesús Martín Tardío (Telefónica engineer of those years) has written a wonderful account of what happened during those glorious years.

    I do not know if it will be exclusively Spanish tradition to ignore (or worse, to despise!) The good things that have been done and magnify the bad, but undoubtedly that happens, and there are many, many examples.

    ---------

    You can read the rest of the article (or taste the complete series) in this link {remove the spaces, I put it like this to avoid the «pingback»}:

    ht tp: // the sieve. com / elcedazo / 2009/04/13 / history-of-an-old-computer-the-way-to-relational-databases /