[HN Gopher] After Dark Screensavers in CSS
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       After Dark Screensavers in CSS
        
       Author : ohjeez
       Score  : 529 points
       Date   : 2023-03-05 17:10 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.bryanbraun.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.bryanbraun.com)
        
       | user3939382 wrote:
       | These guys sell a usable/real one
       | https://en.infinisys.co.jp/index.shtml Flying toasters has been
       | my default for a while. Love it.
        
       | webwielder2 wrote:
       | UnderWare was way better
       | https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/underware
        
         | IIsi50MHz wrote:
         | Yeah, the ads for that always made it look wonderful! But my
         | fam had already got original Pyro, a couple upgrades to it
         | (colour! and fish!), and then Darkside. That last was freeware,
         | with what seemed like loads more modules, even some third party
         | ones and a dev kit... but nowhere near as many as what became
         | thousands of After Dark modules (though Darkside could run some
         | of them).
        
       | tonymet wrote:
       | Looking back I wonder how many megawatts were wasted on screen
       | savers and SetiAtHome in the 90s
        
         | paulryanrogers wrote:
         | Sadly there was (still is?) a mentality that daily turning off
         | your computer was somehow bad for it. Considering energy
         | consumption it always seemed crazy to me, even with a nominal
         | increase in drive wear.
         | 
         | Steve Gibson still advocates never turning of spinning disks in
         | this modern era.
        
           | logbiscuitswave wrote:
           | It was definitely worse on old hardware, and with the many
           | old and unrefurbished computers that are likely inflicted
           | with capacitor plague, you're likely to blow something up if
           | you power one up that's been sitting idle in someone's
           | basement for the past couple decades.
           | 
           | With modern power management there's less of a reason to
           | power it off. S3 can power down most peripherals when they
           | aren't being used and draw just a few watts.
           | 
           | Even when shut down, the PSU still needs to consume power so
           | it can turn on when you press the power button, keep the
           | internal clock running, and a few other things. It's minimal
           | draw but it's still using electricity. Only way to completely
           | turn it off is by switching off the PSU (if you can) or
           | unplugging completely.
        
             | Dalewyn wrote:
             | >keep the internal clock running
             | 
             | That's the job of the mobo battery, the PSU just charges it
             | as an afterthought.
        
               | logbiscuitswave wrote:
               | The battery isn't typically charged by the PSU -- it's
               | often just a regular lithium coin cell. It's a backup for
               | when it is unplugged so the clock doesn't reset and CMOS
               | settings aren't lost.
        
           | masswerk wrote:
           | Turning on is what actually kills most hardware. So, yay...
        
           | Dalewyn wrote:
           | A computer undergoes the most electrical stress when turning
           | on, and doubly so for any components that also experience
           | physical stresses such as HDDs and fans.
           | 
           | One of the quickest ways to kill a HDD or fan is to make it
           | spin up its motor from idle frequently as a consequence of
           | power saving policies.
           | 
           | Personally, I never turn my computers off unless I know I
           | won't be using them for extended periods of time (say a week
           | or two). The power bill savings aren't worth the decreased
           | hardware life.
        
             | paulryanrogers wrote:
             | > The power bill savings aren't worth the decreased
             | hardware life.
             | 
             | For consumer usage I find this hard to believe. I only use
             | my laptop/desktop's spinning disks like 2h a day at most.
             | Then there are hybrid disks or systems that are likely
             | sleeping the disks when use is infrequent.
        
               | Dalewyn wrote:
               | Let me put it this way:
               | 
               | I have a ~12 year old (110,651 power on hours), 500GB
               | PATA Maxtor/Seagate HDD with 135 power cycles.
               | 
               | It's still alive and kicking ass as we speak.
        
               | IIsi50MHz wrote:
               | Hmm, I think we need more evidence to decide which
               | tradeoffs we're making. I have four 1990s drives with
               | thousands of power cycles, still fully functional. And
               | one more from the same time period that failed about 8
               | years ago.
               | 
               | (( Why do I have these? Well, because they're SCSI or
               | SCSI II, which the hosts support. And because I've not
               | bothered to replace the drives with solid-state hacks
               | that put SD cards on the same interface. ))
        
               | justsomehnguy wrote:
               | In my life life of L1 tech I had replaced too many HDDs
               | to count.
               | 
               | Sure, the main problem was the subpar PSUs, but are you
               | sure what your PSU is enough?
        
               | Someone wrote:
               | I don't see how that addresses the claim "The power bill
               | savings aren't worth the decreased hardware life."
               | 
               | It might even be the case that, if you bought a
               | replacement six years ago and kept that powered on 24/7,
               | you would have ended up paying less in (hardware+power).
        
               | Dalewyn wrote:
               | Yeah, but it's one more hard drive in the trash.
               | 
               | Besides, it's not _this_ hard drive anyway. At this point
               | I want to see how long this wizard of a hard drive will
               | keep running.
        
             | timthorn wrote:
             | Given we're talking of After Dark times, don't forget to
             | run park before turning the machine off :)
        
           | justsomehnguy wrote:
           | Ramp load/unload still wears it, it's the basic physics.
           | 
           | And the failure rate of drives with an agressive
           | powersaving[0] says there are some truth to it.
           | 
           | [0] WD Green, remembrr them?
        
         | Logans_Run wrote:
         | Given the power consumption of the typical 21+ CRT monitors at
         | the time it probably saved a whole load of power.
        
           | masswerk wrote:
           | CRTs weren't that power hungry at all. E.g., an entire 8-bit
           | computer from 1979 (Sharp Mz-80) is rated 45W, including the
           | CPU, the entire PCB, and its 9 inch monitor. A 21 inch
           | Trinitron CRT monitor is rated at 1.2A (this is less than a
           | Raspberry Pi 3; there's no Watt rating on the label, but I
           | recall it as about 30-35W). These are actual ratings from
           | actual equipment, I have.
           | 
           | In fact, early LCD monitors were (much) more power hungry.
           | E.g., a not that early Apple Cinema HD Display from 2007 is
           | still rated 2.05A (65W) at 20 inch and 3.7A (90W) at 23 inch.
           | Taking the weighted average, this is double the energy
           | consumption of the 21 inch Trinitron CRT. A modern 24 inch M1
           | iMac is still in about the same range as this LCD, at about
           | 80-85W (including the CPU and PCB).
        
             | lelanthran wrote:
             | Interesting. I gave away my old monster CRT so I cannot
             | check.
             | 
             | I wonder if it would be possible to buy a modern 27" or
             | larger CRT these days; I recall that the CRTs always looked
             | better than the LCDs when LCDs first became popular.
        
               | masswerk wrote:
               | Ok, I just looked up the specs for the most amazing CRT,
               | I still have around, the ultra-flat, digital 17" Apple
               | Studio Display. (It has no label of any kind that I could
               | find.) This one clocks in at 115W, which is not so much
               | in line with what I commented previously. Conversely, the
               | LCD display of the same seies is rated at just 40W at
               | 17". However, as digital connection standards moved on,
               | the only computer you can hook these up to is the G4
               | Cube.
               | 
               | Generally, CRTs have a sweet point at about 17 or 19
               | inch. Anything bigger will come at a noticeably loss of
               | quality (due to increasing alignment problems that come
               | with color CRTs), even for the rather expensive ones.
               | (Even a Trinitron is not that sharp at 19" as it is at
               | 17". And I remember a particular 24" Radius display,
               | where you couldn't tell dithered from solid colors.) I
               | wouldn't go above 21", unless you're specialising in
               | large layouts and insist on doing them on a CRT. ;-)
               | 
               | And, as far as I know, the production of commercial CRTs
               | stopped in the 2000s. (But you can still get them, if
               | you're Airbus or a similar manufacturer. [2]) However,
               | for the mere mortals...
               | 
               | [0] Apple Studio Display 17" CRT (Diamondtron is yet
               | another name for Trintron after Sony's patent expired): h
               | ttps://everymac.com/monitors/apple/studio_cinema/specs/ap
               | pl...
               | 
               | [1] Apple Studio Display 17" LCD (not that great as a
               | display panel, yet too early...): https://everymac.com/mo
               | nitors/apple/studio_cinema/specs/appl...
               | 
               | [2] https://www.thomaselectronics.com/faq/
        
             | Logans_Run wrote:
             | Assuming that P=VA that would mean that the Trinitron was
             | using 240v x 1.2a = 288W or if on 110v 110v x 1.2a = 132W.
             | 
             | Raspberry Pi 3 = 5v x ~2.1a = 10.5W max.
        
             | edb_123 wrote:
             | 1.2A doesn't say much without knowing the voltage. If
             | you're in the US and (this being a CRT monitor) it's
             | running on a mains voltage of 120V, this would be 144
             | watts.
        
           | duskwuff wrote:
           | Not to mention, most computers at the time didn't implement
           | any kind of idle power savings. Running a flashy screensaver
           | didn't use any more power than sitting at the desktop.
        
         | tomcam wrote:
         | about 350
        
       | bigfoot675 wrote:
       | Does anyone know if there is a straightforward way to implement
       | logic for showing a screen saver like this in a basic website
       | after X number of minutes without user interaction?
        
         | human wrote:
         | setTimeout to trigger the screensaver. Restart the timeout on
         | mouse move.
        
         | JUNGLEISMASSIVE wrote:
         | [dead]
        
       | Nition wrote:
       | In 1997 our school class computer had three particularly fun
       | screensavers:
       | 
       | - The one from Microsoft Dangerous Creatures, which would show
       | wild animals and (if you forgot to tell it not to) also play
       | their sounds. Fun times when you're all sitting quietly in class
       | and suddenly the computer plays a lion roar.
       | 
       | - After Dark. For some reason the flying toasters were endlessly
       | fascinating back then.
       | 
       | - One that was a top-down view of a soccer field with an actual
       | simulated game being played between little AI players. I think
       | occasionally there was even a streaker. I've never managed to
       | find this one, does anyone know it?
        
         | cortesoft wrote:
         | Was the last one called "Lights Out Sports Fans"? I know they
         | had a baseball and basketball one, that did what you described.
         | I had the baseball one.
         | 
         | In fact, it is kinda a funny story... I was about 10 years old,
         | and my mom used to take me out of school every year to go to
         | the MacWorld convention in San Francisco (just the exhibition
         | hall).
         | 
         | One year I went and they had a booth for lights out sports fans
         | screen savers, and as a prize for sitting through the demo you
         | had a chance to win the baseball one.
         | 
         | Well, I sat through the demo about 5 times trying to win and
         | never won. I would answer all the questions the demo guy would
         | ask, and he was probably getting a little annoyed. He finally
         | just gave me the screen saver to get me to go away.
         | 
         | Looks like you can buy it on eBay
         | https://www.ebay.com/itm/202832094823
        
           | Nition wrote:
           | Thanks! I don't remember the name, but I bet it was, because
           | really how many simulated sports game screensavers can there
           | have been?
           | 
           | There doesn't seem to be any particular record of a
           | soccer/football version of Lights Out Sports Fans on the
           | Internet that I can see, but then it was a long time ago and
           | there isn't much info on the other sports either.
        
           | amatecha wrote:
           | Ahh that's awesome. I wished so badly I could attend MacWorld
           | Expo back then. My parents went a couple times, but I didn't
           | get to join. I still have some super cool swag they brought
           | back, though, at least! Those were fun times indeed :)
        
             | cortesoft wrote:
             | It was seriously magical to me. This was like 91 to 96 or
             | so, so the internet was just starting for the mainstream
             | and so getting demo versions of software was really cool.
             | We used to ride BART into the city, and then the whole BART
             | ride back after would be me going through my bag of swag
             | reading all the pamphlets and looking at the demo disks.
             | Half the stuff I didn't even know what it was yet, but it
             | fascinated me.
             | 
             | My mom wasn't into tech at all, either. She just knew I was
             | so she found out about the conference and took me. I was so
             | lucky.
        
         | justsomehnguy wrote:
         | > you're all sitting quietly in class and suddenly the computer
         | plays a lion roar
         | 
         | INTERACTIVITY
        
           | Nition wrote:
           | Today, the idea of a program that intentionally makes your
           | computer start playing loud sounds after X minutes of
           | inactivity is ridiculous. Back then, it was also ridiculous
           | but the world hadn't quite realised yet. We were too excited
           | about INTERACTIVITY.
        
             | r2_pilot wrote:
             | Does your phone not sporadically and infrequently beep
             | throughout the day? Yay INTERACTIVITY
        
       | samstave wrote:
       | You know what would be an interesting detail to add to sites:
       | 
       | The ability to designate a specific background CSS "tab-saver"
       | such that the base bkgd css is the animation you wanted, so such
       | as this area:
       | 
       | https://i.imgur.com/cZuXEq2.png
       | 
       | The white-space on the sides will play the css saver... but you
       | can set each background type based on site (kind of like RES on
       | steriods)
       | 
       | So that the borders show this CSS... it will allow for a super
       | fast identification of which tab/site your on (if youre anything
       | like me and I constantly have multiple windows, with many tabs,
       | on multiple monitors.
       | 
       | It would be cool to be able to tack a background to to site
       | groups such that the edge based animations you select could be
       | genre specific.
       | 
       | Favorite sites could be "starred" and any starred site can have a
       | set bkgd.
       | 
       | just to make the navigating between content/thought silos can be
       | faster because you will see the border/bkgd in a faster mental
       | pattern recognition than reading a URL or even a color. as we can
       | identify different motions faster than we can other pattern
       | recogs.
        
       | neom wrote:
       | CSS Microsoft Bob would be fun.
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkU4WWEUj-Y&ab_channel=LGR
        
       | meatjuice wrote:
       | Cool! I wasn't born when the Mackintosh was firstly published
       | unfortunately, but these screensavers make me feel nostalgic
       | somehow.
        
       | konfusinomicon wrote:
       | after dark was the best..second only to hey macaroni. next
       | version of this needs to include bungee jumping cows
        
       | FollowingTheDao wrote:
       | Oh my this is bringing me back! I was providing desktop support
       | for Cisco Systems in North Carolina in 1995 and all anybody
       | wanted was After Dark screensavers. Messages was popular (We
       | would often walk to a persons desk and know where they were,
       | really helpful), as was Rainstorm.
        
       | mortenjorck wrote:
       | This just reminded me of a piece of software I haven't thought
       | about in many years, and I don't know the name of it. Sometime in
       | the mid-1990s, I have this memory of floor model PCs at retailers
       | like CompUSA in Circuit City running a screensaver consisting of
       | an assortment of pre-rendered, 3-D geometric eye candy. They were
       | basically looping animated GIFs, probably 320 x 200, running full
       | screen, and cycling through the collection at regular intervals.
       | 
       | Anyone else remember this?
        
       | Waterluvian wrote:
       | Spotlight shows a System 7.5 desktop with "1.6GB available."
       | 
       | I don't believe you. ;)
        
         | re wrote:
         | That's Mac OS 9, not System 7.5! Almost certainly a screenshot
         | from an emulator though.
        
         | amatecha wrote:
         | haha! well, my [not-so-great] Performa 5260/120 came with a
         | 1.2gb drive and System 7.5.3 installed, so it's definitely not
         | implausible! In fact the PowerTower Pro 225 came with a 2gb or
         | 8gb drive as standard (and System 7.5.3). Too lazy to search
         | others, but yeah, by the time OS 9 came around, drives of that
         | size were very typical.
        
           | Waterluvian wrote:
           | Gosh I'm jealous. My childhood computer was an LCIII with
           | 0.008GB of RAM. (I'm not doing the base 2 in my head. Sue me
           | ;) )
        
         | dwighttk wrote:
         | Power Mac 9500 came with 2GB HD
        
       | johnvaluk wrote:
       | Why does CSS animation consume so much CPU? I've been trying to
       | use it in my own projects, but the fans kick in even with a
       | single simple continuous animation. Unfortunately, this
       | (awesome!) example is no exception.
        
         | underwater wrote:
         | If you're really interested you can dig into `about:tracing`.
         | It looks like the majority of the slowdown (for what it is) is
         | the document recalculating styles for the `transform` property.
        
         | speedgoose wrote:
         | It may be an issue with your machine.
        
         | Sesse__ wrote:
         | They don't really seem to be using a lot of CPU here? I did a
         | quick tracing of the flying toasters screensaver, and the
         | Chrome profiler says that a random frame I picked out used:
         | 
         | 0.23 ms in recalc style
         | 
         | 61 us in pre-paint
         | 
         | 17 us in paint
         | 
         | 67 us in compositing
         | 
         | That doesn't sound too bad to me?
        
         | Tade0 wrote:
         | It's probably not the CPU, but the integrated GPU. Browsers are
         | hardcoded to use that instead of the discrete GPU.
        
         | juddgaddie wrote:
         | Are you running Linux or Windows? On Linux some GPU accelerated
         | functions are disabled. chrome://gpu/ or firefox -
         | about:support
        
       | cesaref wrote:
       | I seem to remember you could alter how well done the toast was
       | done in the preferences for flying toasters.
       | 
       | I'm also remembering the fish tank slowing down as more fish
       | appeared on screen on my rather underpowered Mac IIcx back in the
       | day :)
        
       | khazhoux wrote:
       | Oh I love trash!
       | 
       | I love it because it's trash.
        
       | ibbtown wrote:
       | Ah you made me think of my favourite screensaver. It was
       | definitely "Bis ans Ende der Welt" (Until world's end) from the
       | German post. Watched it many hours as a youth. But I think I miss
       | a after dark screensaver which I really liked but I can't
       | remember which one it was
        
       | swayvil wrote:
       | On a related note
       | 
       | a collection of free screen savers for X11, macOS, iOS and
       | Android
       | 
       | by Jamie Zawinski and many others.
       | 
       | https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/
        
         | sasas wrote:
         | Thanks for sharing, although unfortunately when visiting the
         | link above the author has left an unfriendly message -
         | 
         | "HACKER NEWS - A DDoS made of finance-obsessed man-children and
         | brogrammers"
         | 
         | Suppose will have to try again another time.
        
           | swayvil wrote:
           | Is that a testicle in an egg-cup?
        
           | ihatepython wrote:
           | Lol that has been there forever. All links from HN get
           | redirected to that page. I believe it checks HTTP_REFERER.
           | 
           | You have to type the url manually. That jwz is a funny guy
        
       | btown wrote:
       | For those who saw the Flying Toasters demo and were disappointed
       | that it didn't have the classic song, I've got you:
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjlusi_h_XA
       | 
       | ... Gleaming angels of love / On mighty toaster wings!
        
         | dspillett wrote:
         | I always liked that they had Ride Of The Valeries as an
         | alternative. Complete with lyrics. Da da d-da daaa da...
        
       | meitros wrote:
       | This would be fun to add to a personal homepage (can use the
       | Visibility API): start showing the screensaver when the user
       | switches to another tab, and hide it/show the content again when
       | they have a mousemove event on your site.
        
       | FiddlerClamp wrote:
       | Windows users can set any (or all!) of these as actual
       | screensavers using this little utility I found:
       | https://github.com/cwc/web-page-screensaver/releases
        
       | ForOldHack wrote:
       | The Warp does not have the space bar jump to hyper space, and it
       | needs Lunatic Fringe.
       | 
       | Oh! Its now on Google Code...
       | https://code.google.com/archive/p/lunatic-fringe/
        
         | ForOldHack wrote:
         | Here is the game for the web: http://fringe.jamescarnley.com/
        
           | pmarreck wrote:
           | this is... not it. it's a weak replica though
        
       | a-dub wrote:
       | berkeley systems!
       | 
       | they had an office in downtown berkeley that featured a twisty
       | slide that connected the first and second floors!
        
         | notbeuller wrote:
         | https://web.archive.org/web/19970625091034/http://www.berksy...
        
         | grood wrote:
         | That slide was a static generator from hell. Also, when odwalla
         | was delivered, there was quite a procession of folks to get
         | their favorite flavors!
        
       | dang wrote:
       | Related:
       | 
       |  _After Dark (90 's screensavers) in CSS_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28806699 - Oct 2021 (26
       | comments)
       | 
       |  _Berkeley Systems "After Dark" screensavers recreated in CSS_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28006679 - July 2021 (149
       | comments)
       | 
       |  _Aggressively Stupid: The Story Behind After Dark (2007)_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22338945 - Feb 2020 (23
       | comments)
       | 
       |  _After Dark in CSS_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14429271 - May 2017 (1
       | comment)
       | 
       |  _After Dark in CSS_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10935432 - Jan 2016 (2
       | comments)
       | 
       |  _After Dark in CSS_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9675287 - June 2015 (2
       | comments)
       | 
       |  _Aggressively Stupid: The Story Behind After Dark (2007)_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7702105 - May 2014 (11
       | comments)
       | 
       |  _Aggressively Stupid: The Story Behind After Dark_ -
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1338175 - May 2010 (3
       | comments)
        
       | nobody_nothing wrote:
       | For those on Mac who want to configure these (or any web page) as
       | your actual screensaver, you can use WebViewScreenSaver[0].
       | 
       | [0]: https://github.com/liquidx/webviewscreensaver
        
       | 1letterunixname wrote:
       | I love this. Recalling there was AD for Windows, DOS, and Mac
       | Classic. I think Amiga also.
        
       | pmarreck wrote:
       | Would love a way to use any of these in Linux, especially Lunatic
       | Fringe and Flying Toasters
        
         | masswerk wrote:
         | If there's a web-enabled screensaver for your system, you could
         | try "The Return of the Flying Toasters" [0]. It provides urls
         | for specific configurations (just below the preferences panel)
         | in order to work as a screensaver. Also, it's all contained in
         | a single file.
         | 
         | [0] https://www.masswerk.at/flyer/
        
         | acidburnNSA wrote:
         | XScreensaver has flying toasters at least.
         | 
         | https://manpages.debian.org/wheezy/xscreensaver-gl/flyingtoa...
        
       | dwighttk wrote:
       | I think starry night was my go-to, and I'm surprised to not see
       | it here as it seems like it would be easier than a couple they
       | did like toasters and fish.
        
         | amatecha wrote:
         | I'd imagine Starry Night (my favorite!!) would be one of the
         | more complicated ones? Randomly generate the buildings and then
         | gradually draw the dots for them (with the dots eventually
         | twinkling out, alternating)... Most of the screensavers on the
         | site are relatively straightforward from a web/CSS perspective
         | :)
        
       | readingnews wrote:
       | What no Lunatic Fringe?
       | 
       | The most awesome screen saver game.
       | 
       | Another one was Johnny Castaway, but it was not a game.
        
       | infl8ed wrote:
       | wow that sweet nostalgia, did anyone else also experience the
       | psychedlic 'timeless' animation sequence?
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAAziY-KiBQ
        
       | atum47 wrote:
       | Do you remember Johnny Castaway? That was fun! Back when I used
       | to have some more free time I thought about implementing
       | Nostalgic stuff like that.
       | 
       | I have a "partially done" ray cast 2d experiment [1] which was an
       | attempt at wolf graphics. You could use it to recreate the "maze"
       | one. Not sure it can be done using CSS only though.
       | 
       | 1 - https://github.com/victorqribeiro/myRaycast
        
         | Joeri wrote:
         | I spent hours watching that guy, always hoping I would see him
         | do something new.
        
         | tshaddox wrote:
         | Johnny Castaway was one of the first things to cause young me
         | to experience genuine wonder at the vast and unpredictable
         | possibilities of computers.
        
         | nu11ptr wrote:
         | Every day I'd make sure the screensaver came on just to see
         | what he would do that particular day. I still miss that
         | screensaver.
        
       | eric1979 wrote:
       | Nice! Great nostalgic implementation.
        
       | overcast wrote:
       | I never understood screensavers, I certainly remember my old CRTs
       | in the 90s sleeping. Zero reason for the power draw when not
       | using.
        
         | crazygringo wrote:
         | They were to prevent burn-in before monitor sleep (standby) was
         | invented.
         | 
         | I don't feel like I remember having that in the 90's at all.
         | Not on my PC running Windows 3.1, or on my Mac SE. But maybe I
         | wouldn't use it because the CRT would take a bit of time to
         | power back up?
         | 
         | Does anybody remember when monitor standby mode became
         | widespread both on monitors and computers and OS's? My google-
         | fu is totally failing, maybe I don't know the right search
         | term.
        
           | Dalewyn wrote:
           | CRT monitors even after the introduction of monitor sleep
           | still took several seconds to get up to full brightness.
           | Better than the several _minutes_ of ye olde CRTs, but still
           | annoying enough to merit screensavers.
        
           | overcast wrote:
           | Maybe my memory fails me, but I thought for sure our home PC
           | had it. I get the reason for it prior, but I swear that was a
           | pretty early development as the personal computer became more
           | prevalent in the mid 90s at least.
        
             | crazygringo wrote:
             | I just looked at some Google Image searches and it seems
             | pretty clear that, at least in software, there was "Stand
             | By" mode in Windows 95 both when shutting down and for
             | screen savers, but there wasn't any in Windows 3.1.
             | 
             | So I guess it was a mid-90's thing that it rolled out in
             | software, although obviously you needed to upgrade to 95.
             | No idea if hardware supported already existed or lagged
             | behind though.
        
       | dbg31415 wrote:
       | Where's Lunatic Fringe?
        
         | morsch wrote:
         | I have fond memories of that as well. I think I first played it
         | on a holiday on my dad's black and white PowerBook. Those fast
         | enemies with the blade-like front were terrifying.
         | 
         | What's the spiritual successor?
        
         | ellisv wrote:
         | Also missing Mowin' Man and a bunch of other good ones
        
         | ForOldHack wrote:
         | My very first question! I was actually hearing that odd yell
         | sound in my head.
        
       | jiveturkey wrote:
       | any ability to install these as system (macOS) screensavers?
        
         | jaredsohn wrote:
         | Could look into how to show a webpage as the screensaver.
         | 
         | From a Google search: https://osxdaily.com/2016/06/05/web-site-
         | as-screen-saver-mac...
        
       | tleite wrote:
       | dude, this almost made me cry, the nostalgia hit was strong
        
       | garbagecoder wrote:
       | This makes me feel reeeeeeeeally old.
        
         | IIsi50MHz wrote:
         | Makes me feel really young! Happy timetravel \\(^_^)/
        
       | VonGuard wrote:
       | After Dark now works in the browser thanks to Archive.org. Here
       | are some examples:
       | 
       | Disney After Dark: https://archive.org/details/after-dark-disney
       | 
       | After Dark 3.2 for Windows:
       | https://archive.org/details/AFTERDARK32_WIN
       | 
       | After Dark Looney Toons: https://archive.org/details/LOONEY_WIN
       | 
       | After Dark for Macintosh 2.0:
       | https://archive.org/details/AfterDark_mac
       | 
       | After Dark Simpsons: https://archive.org/details/SIMPSONS_WIN
        
         | qiqitori wrote:
         | Thanks to a user called Noah2 and thanks to archive.org. (You
         | can see the name of the uploader in the bottom right corner.)
         | 
         | Unfortunately you can be relatively sure that this kind of
         | stuff is released without permission from the copyright
         | holders. (Just food for thought; this is not an endorsement of
         | copyright laws.)
        
           | lelandfe wrote:
           | https://en.infinisys.co.jp/product/afterdarkclassicset/index.
           | .. - Given that Infinisys still sells After Dark (M1 ready,
           | too!), I doubt they have approved those Archive versions.
           | 
           | This stuff makes me nervous about the Internet Archive. For
           | instance, the hundreds of playable video games, all of which
           | are also downloadable:
           | https://archive.org/details/miscconsoles
           | 
           | I don't know how someone like Nintendo hasn't sued their
           | pants off.
        
             | pabs3 wrote:
             | The Internet Archive is a "library", which, in the US,
             | enjoy extra privileges under copyright law.
        
               | Terretta wrote:
               | The amount of basic confusion about civics and, well,
               | anything _constitutional_ -- something has to be done
               | before it all withers away like waterlogged saplings in a
               | swamp of agitation and indifference.
        
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       (page generated 2023-03-06 23:02 UTC)