6 ms·

Aggressively Stupid: The Story Behind After Dark (2007)

72 points by kmooney 9y ago

carsongross 9y ago
If you are sufficiently old and autistic, you can still buy the licensed flying toasters screen saver from a Japanese company called infinisys: http://en.infinisys.co.jp/product/flyingtoasters/index.shtml http://en.infinisys.co.jp/product/flyingtoasters/index.shtml I was.
- nurettin 9y ago
  Frankly, still one of the best things a VGA enabled screen can do.
- neonnoodle 9y ago
  I am also.
- compuguy 9y ago
  I don't consider myself old, but I think the fact that these screensavers are still available is great.
- yvhhjbb 9y ago
  Toast doneness can't be adjusted. Lame.
- ashark 9y ago
  Sure can. It's on both my work and home macbooks. Works fine with multi-screen setups.
- pavel_lishin 9y ago
  I'm less interested in Flying Toasters, than I am in the rest of the After Dark collection, which I would pay for if I could find in its entirety.
  - ashark 9y ago
    You can't. About a year ago I went looking for a big collection of at least the most popular ones, if not all of them, ready to drop $20 or so and fully expecting it to be available. They're not, so now I just have flying toasters.
    - pavel_lishin 9y ago
      There must be someone out there who's got spare time, an old Mac, After Dark - and the willingness to port 'em.
JoeDaDude 9y ago
Nostalgia rush! One of my first programs was an After Dark screen saver module. I implemented randomly flipping Truchet Tiles [1] in Pascal. [1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truchet_tiles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truchet_tiles
maxxxxx 9y ago
I just want the "Lunatic Fringe" game back!
- pavel_lishin 9y ago
  There's a github repo trying to rewrite it for the web: https://github.com/jackinloadup/lunatic-fringe https://github.com/jackinloadup/lunatic-fringe There's also this, which I vaguely remember working for me years ago, but can't vouch for now: http://www.sealiesoftware.com/fringe/ http://www.sealiesoftware.com/fringe/ I have incredibly fond memories of playing Lunatic Fringe, despite being very bad at it, and despite catching a ridiculously bad case of strep throat one year shortly after discovering it, and having some bad, vaguely-related fever dreams about.
- salgernon 9y ago
  I haven't tried this since the PPC days: http://sealiesoftware.com/fringe/ http://sealiesoftware.com/fringe/ Ben Haller still maintains a version of Satori and Rose for Mac OS X: http://www.sticksoftware.com http://www.sticksoftware.com
- Sniffnoy 9y ago
  Man, playing games in After Dark was so annoying... accidentally move the mouse and lose all your progress. ("Rodger Dodger" was my own favorite.) I guess the thing to do would be to get ahold of the "After Dark Games" CD... I'm sure there's got to be some way to play that still... Edit: Looking it up, the After Dark Games version of Rodger Dodger apparently has different levels from the screensaver version! (And not just in that it added ones; in fact it has fewer in total.) That's annoying...
Theodores 9y ago
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? 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. 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.
- soylentcola 9y ago
  And now we live in a time when I regularly hear people refer to their desktop wallpaper as their "screen saver" at work. I'm occasionally tempted to point out that a static wallpaper is the complete opposite of a screen saver, but then I remember that nobody likes a pedant (even an accurate one).
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    I remember lots of people doing that at least as far back as when Windows 3.x was common.
  - ryandrake 9y ago
    > I remember that nobody likes a pedant (even an accurate one). It's just that nobody likes being corrected. Try correcting someone's spelling or grammar on any Internet forum (including HN), and you'll be hit with a barrage of "you know what I meant" and "language changes" retorts.
    - iainmerrick 9y ago
      > > I remember that nobody likes a pedant (even an accurate one). > It's just that nobody likes being corrected. Nice one.
- dkrich 9y ago
salgernon 9y ago
I worked at Berkeley Systems from 1991 to 1994ish. I wasn'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'd worked with Patrick Naughton at Sun on xlock at Sun.) 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. We were in constant competition with an Apple Engineer named Tom Dowdy that had a freeware product "Dark Side of the Mac" that patched no traps at all - patching was always blamed for system instability. It seems like so much work went into something really small... I remember countless overnights, costo runs, alcohol, and a dead hamster named Trurl.
- carsongross 9y ago
  Bucko, you have to resurrect this stuff: you must play out The Hero archetype and rescue your dead father from the depths.
- mrpippy 9y ago
  Fascinating! Do you remember which traps you patched? :) jGNEFilter?
  - st3fan 9y ago
    jGNEFilter was not a trap but a low memory pointer to a function to intercept or filter events.
timthorn 9y ago
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... http://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/02/business/the-executive-computer-how-to-extend-a-monitor-s-life.html http://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/02/business/the-executive-com...
- yvhhjbb 9y ago
  The writing style of that article was excellent. No flourish, no bullshit. Also: > An aside about clocks: This is as good a time as any to reset your computer's internal clock. For I.B.M. and I.B.M.-compatible machines, type ''TIME'' at the DOS prompt, and for Macs bring up the control panel. Then call 900-410-8463. You'll get a recording from the United States Naval Observatory's atomic clock, and you can't get much more accurate than that. The call costs 50 cents. Does it still work?
  - phonon 9y ago
    +1 202 762-1401 (Washington, D.C.) +1 202 762-1069 +1 719 567-6742 (Colorado Springs) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Naval_Observatory#Time_service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Naval_Observator...
  - sp332 9y ago
    If you want to do it manually for some reason, https://time.gov/ https://time.gov/ works.
cardiffspaceman 9y ago
Another way of looking at this is that the end of screen savers means the end of a small culture. I don't remember where I got this idea but I coded up a screensaver very quickly once. The idea was it periodically would make a 1/2 x 1/2 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'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. I also want to quickly mention PointCast [1] as an example of another current in the screensaver sea. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PointCast_(dotcom) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PointCast_(dotcom)
- pavel_lishin 9y ago
  Could you write it for XSCreensaver?
  - cardiffspaceman 9y ago
    > Could you write it for XSCreensaver? Probably. A deeper answer would be off-topic, in my judgement.
Marc66FR 9y ago
I used Afrer Dark as well but prefered Johnny on his desert island :-)
tracker1 9y ago
Man, I kind of bemoan the loss of the screen savers... it'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. 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't come back on, without the remote.
DonutATX 9y ago
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! http://www.old-games.com/download/5742/origin-fx http://www.old-games.com/download/5742/origin-fx
JoeAltmaier 9y ago
I was one of those that never got it. Never wanted stuff on my screen 'after dark'. Never saw the point of 'saving the screen' by using it? Totally baffled by the entire culture.

72 points by kmooney 9y ago

If you are sufficiently old and autistic, you can still buy the licensed flying toasters screen saver from a Japanese company called infinisys: http://en.infinisys.co.jp/product/flyingtoasters/index.shtml http://en.infinisys.co.jp/product/flyingtoasters/index.shtml I was.

nurettin 9y ago
Frankly, still one of the best things a VGA enabled screen can do.
neonnoodle 9y ago
I am also.
compuguy 9y ago
I don't consider myself old, but I think the fact that these screensavers are still available is great.
yvhhjbb 9y ago
Toast doneness can't be adjusted. Lame.
ashark 9y ago
Sure can. It's on both my work and home macbooks. Works fine with multi-screen setups.
pavel_lishin 9y ago
I'm less interested in Flying Toasters, than I am in the rest of the After Dark collection, which I would pay for if I could find in its entirety.
- ashark 9y ago
  You can't. About a year ago I went looking for a big collection of at least the most popular ones, if not all of them, ready to drop $20 or so and fully expecting it to be available. They're not, so now I just have flying toasters.
  - pavel_lishin 9y ago
    There must be someone out there who's got spare time, an old Mac, After Dark - and the willingness to port 'em.

JoeDaDude 9y ago

Nostalgia rush! One of my first programs was an After Dark screen saver module. I implemented randomly flipping Truchet Tiles [1] in Pascal. [1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truchet_tiles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truchet_tiles

maxxxxx 9y ago

I just want the "Lunatic Fringe" game back!

pavel_lishin 9y ago
There's a github repo trying to rewrite it for the web: https://github.com/jackinloadup/lunatic-fringe https://github.com/jackinloadup/lunatic-fringe There's also this, which I vaguely remember working for me years ago, but can't vouch for now: http://www.sealiesoftware.com/fringe/ http://www.sealiesoftware.com/fringe/ I have incredibly fond memories of playing Lunatic Fringe, despite being very bad at it, and despite catching a ridiculously bad case of strep throat one year shortly after discovering it, and having some bad, vaguely-related fever dreams about.
salgernon 9y ago
I haven't tried this since the PPC days: http://sealiesoftware.com/fringe/ http://sealiesoftware.com/fringe/ Ben Haller still maintains a version of Satori and Rose for Mac OS X: http://www.sticksoftware.com http://www.sticksoftware.com
Sniffnoy 9y ago
Man, playing games in After Dark was so annoying... accidentally move the mouse and lose all your progress. ("Rodger Dodger" was my own favorite.) I guess the thing to do would be to get ahold of the "After Dark Games" CD... I'm sure there's got to be some way to play that still... Edit: Looking it up, the After Dark Games version of Rodger Dodger apparently has different levels from the screensaver version! (And not just in that it added ones; in fact it has fewer in total.) That's annoying...

Theodores 9y ago

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? 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. 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.

soylentcola 9y ago
And now we live in a time when I regularly hear people refer to their desktop wallpaper as their "screen saver" at work. I'm occasionally tempted to point out that a static wallpaper is the complete opposite of a screen saver, but then I remember that nobody likes a pedant (even an accurate one).
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  I remember lots of people doing that at least as far back as when Windows 3.x was common.
- ryandrake 9y ago
  > I remember that nobody likes a pedant (even an accurate one). It's just that nobody likes being corrected. Try correcting someone's spelling or grammar on any Internet forum (including HN), and you'll be hit with a barrage of "you know what I meant" and "language changes" retorts.
  - iainmerrick 9y ago
    > > I remember that nobody likes a pedant (even an accurate one). > It's just that nobody likes being corrected. Nice one.
dkrich 9y ago

salgernon 9y ago

I worked at Berkeley Systems from 1991 to 1994ish. I wasn'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'd worked with Patrick Naughton at Sun on xlock at Sun.) 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. We were in constant competition with an Apple Engineer named Tom Dowdy that had a freeware product "Dark Side of the Mac" that patched no traps at all - patching was always blamed for system instability. It seems like so much work went into something really small... I remember countless overnights, costo runs, alcohol, and a dead hamster named Trurl.

carsongross 9y ago
Bucko, you have to resurrect this stuff: you must play out The Hero archetype and rescue your dead father from the depths.
mrpippy 9y ago
Fascinating! Do you remember which traps you patched? :) jGNEFilter?
- st3fan 9y ago
  jGNEFilter was not a trap but a low memory pointer to a function to intercept or filter events.

timthorn 9y ago

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... http://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/02/business/the-executive-computer-how-to-extend-a-monitor-s-life.html http://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/02/business/the-executive-com...

yvhhjbb 9y ago
The writing style of that article was excellent. No flourish, no bullshit. Also: > An aside about clocks: This is as good a time as any to reset your computer's internal clock. For I.B.M. and I.B.M.-compatible machines, type ''TIME'' at the DOS prompt, and for Macs bring up the control panel. Then call 900-410-8463. You'll get a recording from the United States Naval Observatory's atomic clock, and you can't get much more accurate than that. The call costs 50 cents. Does it still work?
- phonon 9y ago
  +1 202 762-1401 (Washington, D.C.) +1 202 762-1069 +1 719 567-6742 (Colorado Springs) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Naval_Observatory#Time_service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Naval_Observator...
- sp332 9y ago
  If you want to do it manually for some reason, https://time.gov/ https://time.gov/ works.

cardiffspaceman 9y ago

Another way of looking at this is that the end of screen savers means the end of a small culture. I don't remember where I got this idea but I coded up a screensaver very quickly once. The idea was it periodically would make a 1/2 x 1/2 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'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. I also want to quickly mention PointCast [1] as an example of another current in the screensaver sea. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PointCast_(dotcom) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PointCast_(dotcom)

pavel_lishin 9y ago
Could you write it for XSCreensaver?
- cardiffspaceman 9y ago
  > Could you write it for XSCreensaver? Probably. A deeper answer would be off-topic, in my judgement.

Marc66FR 9y ago

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

tracker1 9y ago

Man, I kind of bemoan the loss of the screen savers... it'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. 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't come back on, without the remote.

DonutATX 9y ago

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! http://www.old-games.com/download/5742/origin-fx http://www.old-games.com/download/5742/origin-fx

JoeAltmaier 9y ago

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