The word submitted by BlackSoftware.com to the WikiPedia Online Dictionary in 2007 was the word "ethnic software."

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Ethnic Software is a subcategory of applications software. In 1988, before the Internet reached mass consumption levels it was reported that AfroLink Software had released a CD-ROM program with animation and sound featuring 500 questions and answers about black Americans and African history for Meharry Medical College and Howard University Hospital. The software educated lay people about diseases that disproportionately afflict black people.

Eleven years later, Microsoft published an African American version of its popular Encarta CD ROM software encylopedia. The new version named Encarta Africana was announced in 1999 by the Chair of African and African American Studies and the Director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University who authored the Encarta Africana CD for Microsoft.

Betye Saar's 1999 "Digital Griot" art showcase and Mumia Abu-Jamal's "Live from Death Row" computerized story about his involvement with the Black Panthers and the MOVE organization, were published by Voyager, a software company distributing interesting educational CD ROMS that run on Windows and Mac OS enabled computers, made their debut for the masses and were reviewed by Wired Magazine.

In 2000, Black Enterprise magazine wrote in their Tech Watch column, this recommendation for a reader who wanted software containing learning and history software with African American themes for young children.

Ethnic software programmed by the African American has been referred to as BLACKWARE or blacksoftware. Created by AfroCentrists, these screen savers, clip art, and multimedia CD-ROMs were important as various Digital Divide initiatives spurred African American and Hispanic pc ownership and internet use.

The Ethnic Software project explains The Yiddish Typewriter programmed by Raphael Finkel. Ethnic software programs contain culturally accurate graphics, music, text, photos, images, illustrations, spoken word, and other media representing one or more ethnic groups.