Aggressively Stupid: The Story Behind After Dark (2007)

I worked at Berkeley Systems from 1991 to 1994ish. I wasn&#x27;t originally hired to work on screen savers, but as side projects failed, we all ended up doing so. (I got the job in part because I&#x27;d worked with Patrick Naughton at Sun on xlock at Sun.)<p>I ended up writing the After Dark 3.0 engine for Mac, which was a lot of fun because I wrote it as an application and then figured out how to make it run within the context of the frontmost application without affecting it. It only patched 5 system traps rather than the 20+ traps the previous engine patched.<p>We were in constant competition with an Apple Engineer named Tom Dowdy that had a freeware product &quot;Dark Side of the Mac&quot; that patched no traps at all - patching was always blamed for system instability.<p>It seems like so much work went into something really small... I remember countless overnights, costo runs, alcohol, and a dead hamster named Trurl.

Another way of looking at this is that the end of screen savers means the end of a small culture.<p>I don&#x27;t remember where I got this idea but I coded up a screensaver very quickly once. The idea was it periodically would make a 1&#x2F;2 x 1&#x2F;2 size copy of the screen and then copy it to the bottom right, bottom left and top center of the screen. This converges on a fixpoint called the Serpinski Gasket. On Windows it was pretty easy to write such screen savers. I&#x27;d be interested in doing it under X Windows but the people who maintain X Windows (or DEs) are not interested in maintaining end-user-facing variety in screen savers. And if you can do it it means that rogue software can exfiltrate image captures of your running programs.<p>I also want to quickly mention PointCast [1] as an example of another current in the screensaver sea.<p>[1]<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;PointCast_(dotcom)" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;PointCast_(dotcom)</a>

The author does not write about the broader context of the demise of the screen saver. Energy Star played a part, who needs their monitor on anyway?<p>Operating Systems also came with their own screen savers plus the people that liked screen savers were not prone to buying software, usually software was pirated or unlicensed in the 90s. Therefore this crowd were happy with openGL Windows screen savers. This was during a time when the Mac barely existed in the corporate world.<p>Really this product should never have existed and we should have moved to modern power management of monitors 30 years ago. Think of the electricity that could have been saved.

If you are sufficiently old and autistic, you can still buy the licensed flying toasters screen saver from a Japanese company called infinisys:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.infinisys.co.jp&#x2F;product&#x2F;flyingtoasters&#x2F;index.shtml" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.infinisys.co.jp&#x2F;product&#x2F;flyingtoasters&#x2F;index.shtml</a><p>I was.

How can the article not mention Pyro!? There was some tribal attachment to your screensaver, if I remember right, and I was on the Pyro! side...<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;1989&#x2F;04&#x2F;02&#x2F;business&#x2F;the-executive-computer-how-to-extend-a-monitor-s-life.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;1989&#x2F;04&#x2F;02&#x2F;business&#x2F;the-executive-com...</a>

Nostalgia rush! One of my first programs was an After Dark screen saver module. I implemented randomly flipping Truchet Tiles [1] in Pascal.<p>[1]. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Truchet_tiles" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Truchet_tiles</a>

Oh man, these were cash cows. $24.99 for the one my company did, it came on three floppy disks. But, if you had our games installed, it would use their art resources for more screensavers!<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.old-games.com&#x2F;download&#x2F;5742&#x2F;origin-fx" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.old-games.com&#x2F;download&#x2F;5742&#x2F;origin-fx</a>

I just want the &quot;Lunatic Fringe&quot; game back!

Man, I kind of bemoan the loss of the screen savers... it&#x27;s a pain to get them running everywhere now. Windows 10 buried it, and seems to reset it on occasion. Ubuntu, you have to install the X screensaver, and change some settings... Mac, not even sure anymore.<p>I always liked the screensavers, and still do. I use a gaming-friendly 4K TV for my PC monitor at home, and without the screensaver, it shuts off, and doesn&#x27;t come back on, without the remote.

I was one of those that never got it. Never wanted stuff on my screen &#x27;after dark&#x27;. Never saw the point of &#x27;saving the screen&#x27; by using it? Totally baffled by the entire culture.

I used Afrer Dark as well but prefered Johnny on his desert island :-)