TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

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NAME:Omikron Soft (OMK)
ORIGIN:Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona (Spain)
FOUNDED:1987
STATUS:Historical (Pioneer in commercial software)
SPECIALIZATION:Video Game Development for Amstrad PCW
MANAGEMENT:Francisco Lozano (Director) and Víctor Diéguez García (Head of Programming)
Historical Background

Omikron Soft, better known in the scene as OMK, was founded in 1987. It was one of the pioneer companies and one of the very few software houses in Spain that specialized with priority in the programming of commercial games for the Amstrad PCW system.

OMK was originally born in the home of its director, Francisco Lozano, operating from a small room set up as a technical office where initially they only had a couple of MSX microcomputers. With this basic infrastructure, the team took its first steps in software development, creating its first experimental entertainment titles such as "Viaje a América" or "Magic Pinball". Upon realizing the massive shortage of Spanish leisure software in the Amstrad PCW catalog and the wide opportunities of the retro market, the team made the strategic decision to shift all their efforts towards this professional computer system.

The group's genesis traces back to when programmer Víctor Diéguez García worked as Francisco's sound technician at a local radio station. Víctor formally proposed founding a software label, an initiative that was temporarily postponed due to his mandatory military service. Upon his return, both embarked on the technical journey of competing with the releases of major national software distributors in physical 3-inch floppy disk formats.

The commercial beginnings were complex due to the technical difficulty of optimizing stable subroutines on the PCW hardware, which was originally intended solely for word processing. However, after refining the code of "Viaje a América" from its initial MSX version, the leap to the Amstrad computer ecosystem was consolidated with the technical release of Formula 1, an absolute sales success that validated their production model.

From that moment on, various leisure releases followed one after another, defining the gaming catalog under the CP/M operating system for the PCW. Among their most celebrated arcade and action works are "Sky War", "Sir Lancelot", "Terracom", "Magic Way", "Buran", "Cubik Road", and "Space Combat", along with projects featuring official national licenses such as "La Corona Mágica". One of their most ambitious and remembered technical projects consisted of the development of **500 c.c. Championship**, an incredible motorcycle racing game inspired by the arcade cabinet *Super Hang-On*, incorporating sophisticated scroll routines and digitalized monochromatic graphics.

Technical Profile: Víctor Diéguez García

Head of technical development and the core pillar of programming at OMK. He stood out at the time for his ability to disassemble routines and squeeze maximum performance out of the Z80 processor in environments where other developers discarded the system due to its graphic complexity. He handcrafted his own cross-development systems using 16-bit Atari computers as production workstations, overcoming the barriers of the era's lack of technical documentation in Spanish.

Production Photographic Archive
Preserved Software Products
Official Video Game Catalog (Amstrad PCW) 500 c.c. Championship - Advanced motorcycle simulator featuring scrolling and digitalized graphics. Buran - Multi-phase space action arcade game. Cubik Road - Skill/puzzle genre title integrated into their catalog. Formula 1 (1987) - OMK's first major commercial success on the PCW system. Grand Slam Tenis - Sports adaptation commercialized for the Amstrad range. Krom el guerrero - Action and fantasy-themed software release. La Corona Mágica - Official software adaptation based on the famous television animated series. Magic Way / El Descubrimiento de América (1989) - Technically considered among their finest developments. Sky War (1989) - Aerial action game preserved and documented in contemporary press. Sir Lancelot (1989) - Action-adventure distributed on physical 3-inch floppy disk. Space Combat - Space combat and strategy simulation developed by the company. Strip Poker (1989) - Card game adaptation targeted at adult users. Terracom - Arcade-style video game commercialized natively for the platform.
Ecosystem Relations (Entity Information)
Primary Technical Architecture: Amstrad PCW (Models 8256 and 8512) Operating System Structure: CP/M Routines and Screen Graphic Management Support & Development Environments Used: 16-Bit Atari Microcomputers
Production Addresses and Offices (Spain)
Headquarters and Technical Laboratory of Omikron Soft (OMK) Calle Lepanto, 86, 1º, 1ª - Postal Code 08290 Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona, Catalonia (Spain).