10 ms·

After Dark Screensavers in CSS

555 points by ohjeez 4y ago

FiddlerClamp 4y ago
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 https://github.com/cwc/web-page-screensaver/releases
aunterste 4y ago
I miss the times when flying toasters where super exciting ...
atum47 4y ago
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 https://github.com/victorqribeiro/myRaycast
- tshaddox 4y ago
  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 4y ago
  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.
- Joeri 4y ago
  I spent hours watching that guy, always hoping I would see him do something new.
VonGuard 4y ago
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 https://archive.org/details/after-dark-disney After Dark 3.2 for Windows: https://archive.org/details/AFTERDARK32_WIN https://archive.org/details/AFTERDARK32_WIN After Dark Looney Toons: https://archive.org/details/LOONEY_WIN https://archive.org/details/LOONEY_WIN After Dark for Macintosh 2.0: https://archive.org/details/AfterDark_mac https://archive.org/details/AfterDark_mac After Dark Simpsons: https://archive.org/details/SIMPSONS_WIN https://archive.org/details/SIMPSONS_WIN
- qiqitori 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    https://en.infinisys.co.jp/product/afterdarkclassicset/index.shtml 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 https://archive.org/details/miscconsoles I don't know how someone like Nintendo hasn't sued their pants off.
    - pabs3 4y ago
      The Internet Archive is a "library", which, in the US, enjoy extra privileges under copyright law.
      - Terretta 4y ago
        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.
johnvaluk 4y ago
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.
- juddgaddie 4y ago
  Are you running Linux or Windows? On Linux some GPU accelerated functions are disabled. chrome://gpu/ or firefox - about:support
- Sesse__ 4y ago
  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 µs in pre-paint 17 µs in paint 67 µs in compositing That doesn't sound too bad to me?
- speedgoose 4y ago
  It may be an issue with your machine.
- Tade0 4y ago
  It's probably not the CPU, but the integrated GPU. Browsers are hardcoded to use that instead of the discrete GPU.
- underwater 4y ago
  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.
btown 4y ago
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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjlusi_h_XA ... Gleaming angels of love / On mighty toaster wings!
- dspillett 4y ago
  I always liked that they had Ride Of The Valeries as an alternative. Complete with lyrics. Da da d-da daaa da...
infl8ed 4y ago
wow that sweet nostalgia, did anyone else also experience the psychedlic 'timeless' animation sequence? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAAziY-KiBQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAAziY-KiBQ
dbg31415 4y ago
Where’s Lunatic Fringe?
- morsch 4y ago
  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?
- ForOldHack 4y ago
  My very first question! I was actually hearing that odd yell sound in my head.
- ellisv 4y ago
  Also missing Mowin’ Man and a bunch of other good ones
user3939382 4y ago
These guys sell a usable/real one https://en.infinisys.co.jp/index.shtml https://en.infinisys.co.jp/index.shtml Flying toasters has been my default for a while. Love it.
dang 4y ago
Related: After Dark (90's screensavers) in CSS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28806699 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 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22338945 - Feb 2020 (23 comments) After Dark in CSS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14429271 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14429271 - May 2017 (1 comment) After Dark in CSS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10935432 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10935432 - Jan 2016 (2 comments) After Dark in CSS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9675287 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 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1338175 - May 2010 (3 comments)
Nition 4y ago
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?
- justsomehnguy 4y ago
  > you're all sitting quietly in class and suddenly the computer plays a lion roar INTERACTIVITY
  - Nition 4y ago
    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 4y ago
      Does your phone not sporadically and infrequently beep throughout the day? Yay INTERACTIVITY
- cortesoft 4y ago
  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 https://www.ebay.com/itm/202832094823
FollowingTheDao 4y ago
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.
webwielder2 4y ago
UnderWare was way better https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/underware https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/underware
- IIsi50MHz 4y ago
  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).
meitros 4y ago
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.
ForOldHack 4y ago
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/ https://code.google.com/archive/p/lunatic-fringe/
- ForOldHack 4y ago
  Here is the game for the web: http://fringe.jamescarnley.com/ http://fringe.jamescarnley.com/
  - pmarreck 4y ago
    this is... not it. it's a weak replica though
dwighttk 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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 :)
Waterluvian 4y ago
Spotlight shows a System 7.5 desktop with “1.6GB available.” I don’t believe you. ;)
- re 4y ago
  That's Mac OS 9, not System 7.5! Almost certainly a screenshot from an emulator though.
- dwighttk 4y ago
  Power Mac 9500 came with 2GB HD
- amatecha 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    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 ;) )
readingnews 4y ago
What no Lunatic Fringe? The most awesome screen saver game. Another one was Johnny Castaway, but it was not a game.
tonymet 4y ago
Looking back I wonder how many megawatts were wasted on screen savers and SetiAtHome in the 90s
- paulryanrogers 4y ago
  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.
  - Dalewyn 4y ago
    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 4y ago
      > 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 4y ago
        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 4y ago
konfusinomicon 4y ago
after dark was the best..second only to hey macaroni. next version of this needs to include bungee jumping cows
pmarreck 4y ago
Would love a way to use any of these in Linux, especially Lunatic Fringe and Flying Toasters
- acidburnNSA 4y ago
  XScreensaver has flying toasters at least. https://manpages.debian.org/wheezy/xscreensaver-gl/flyingtoasters.6x.en.html https://manpages.debian.org/wheezy/xscreensaver-gl/flyingtoa...
- masswerk 4y ago
  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/ https://www.masswerk.at/flyer/
jiveturkey 4y ago
any ability to install these as system (macOS) screensavers?
- jaredsohn 4y ago
  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/ https://osxdaily.com/2016/06/05/web-site-as-screen-saver-mac...
samstave 4y ago
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 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.
khazhoux 4y ago
Oh I love trash! I love it because it’s trash.
garbagecoder 4y ago
This makes me feel reeeeeeeeally old.
- IIsi50MHz 4y ago
  Makes me feel really young! Happy timetravel \(^_^)/
bigfoot675 4y ago
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 4y ago
  setTimeout to trigger the screensaver. Restart the timeout on mouse move.
- JUNGLEISMASSIVE 4y ago
  [dead]
cesaref 4y ago
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 :)
a-dub 4y ago
berkeley systems! they had an office in downtown berkeley that featured a twisty slide that connected the first and second floors!
- notbeuller 4y ago
  https://web.archive.org/web/19970625091034/http://www.berksys.com/lite/cafeslack/takepic.html https://web.archive.org/web/19970625091034/http://www.berksy...
- grood 4y ago
  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!
neom 4y ago
CSS Microsoft Bob would be fun. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkU4WWEUj-Y&ab_channel=LGR https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkU4WWEUj-Y&ab_channel=LGR
nobody_nothing 4y ago
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 https://github.com/liquidx/webviewscreensaver
ibbtown 4y ago
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 4y ago
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/ https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/
- sasas 4y ago
  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.
  - ihatepython 4y ago
    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
  - swayvil 4y ago
    Is that a testicle in an egg-cup?
overcast 4y ago
I never understood screensavers, I certainly remember my old CRTs in the 90s sleeping. Zero reason for the power draw when not using.
- crazygringo 4y ago
  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.
  - overcast 4y ago
    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 4y ago
      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.
  - Dalewyn 4y ago
    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.
meatjuice 4y ago
Cool! I wasn’t born when the Mackintosh was firstly published unfortunately, but these screensavers make me feel nostalgic somehow.
1letterunixname 4y ago
I love this. Recalling there was AD for Windows, DOS, and Mac Classic. I think Amiga also.
tleite 4y ago
dude, this almost made me cry, the nostalgia hit was strong
mortenjorck 4y ago
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?
eric1979 4y ago
Nice! Great nostalgic implementation.

555 points by ohjeez 4y ago

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 https://github.com/cwc/web-page-screensaver/releases

aunterste 4y ago

I miss the times when flying toasters where super exciting ...

atum47 4y ago

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 https://github.com/victorqribeiro/myRaycast

tshaddox 4y ago
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 4y ago
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.
Joeri 4y ago
I spent hours watching that guy, always hoping I would see him do something new.

VonGuard 4y ago

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 https://archive.org/details/after-dark-disney After Dark 3.2 for Windows: https://archive.org/details/AFTERDARK32_WIN https://archive.org/details/AFTERDARK32_WIN After Dark Looney Toons: https://archive.org/details/LOONEY_WIN https://archive.org/details/LOONEY_WIN After Dark for Macintosh 2.0: https://archive.org/details/AfterDark_mac https://archive.org/details/AfterDark_mac After Dark Simpsons: https://archive.org/details/SIMPSONS_WIN https://archive.org/details/SIMPSONS_WIN

qiqitori 4y ago
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 4y ago
  https://en.infinisys.co.jp/product/afterdarkclassicset/index.shtml 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 https://archive.org/details/miscconsoles I don't know how someone like Nintendo hasn't sued their pants off.
  - pabs3 4y ago
    The Internet Archive is a "library", which, in the US, enjoy extra privileges under copyright law.
    - Terretta 4y ago
      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.

johnvaluk 4y ago

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.

juddgaddie 4y ago
Are you running Linux or Windows? On Linux some GPU accelerated functions are disabled. chrome://gpu/ or firefox - about:support
Sesse__ 4y ago
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 µs in pre-paint 17 µs in paint 67 µs in compositing That doesn't sound too bad to me?
speedgoose 4y ago
It may be an issue with your machine.
Tade0 4y ago
It's probably not the CPU, but the integrated GPU. Browsers are hardcoded to use that instead of the discrete GPU.
underwater 4y ago
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.

btown 4y ago

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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjlusi_h_XA ... Gleaming angels of love / On mighty toaster wings!

dspillett 4y ago
I always liked that they had Ride Of The Valeries as an alternative. Complete with lyrics. Da da d-da daaa da...

infl8ed 4y ago

wow that sweet nostalgia, did anyone else also experience the psychedlic 'timeless' animation sequence? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAAziY-KiBQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAAziY-KiBQ

dbg31415 4y ago

Where’s Lunatic Fringe?

morsch 4y ago
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?
ForOldHack 4y ago
My very first question! I was actually hearing that odd yell sound in my head.
ellisv 4y ago
Also missing Mowin’ Man and a bunch of other good ones

user3939382 4y ago

These guys sell a usable/real one https://en.infinisys.co.jp/index.shtml https://en.infinisys.co.jp/index.shtml Flying toasters has been my default for a while. Love it.

dang 4y ago

Related: After Dark (90's screensavers) in CSS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28806699 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 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22338945 - Feb 2020 (23 comments) After Dark in CSS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14429271 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14429271 - May 2017 (1 comment) After Dark in CSS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10935432 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10935432 - Jan 2016 (2 comments) After Dark in CSS - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9675287 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 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1338175 - May 2010 (3 comments)

Nition 4y ago

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?

justsomehnguy 4y ago
> you're all sitting quietly in class and suddenly the computer plays a lion roar INTERACTIVITY
- Nition 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    Does your phone not sporadically and infrequently beep throughout the day? Yay INTERACTIVITY
cortesoft 4y ago
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 https://www.ebay.com/itm/202832094823

FollowingTheDao 4y ago

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.

webwielder2 4y ago

UnderWare was way better https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/underware https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/underware

IIsi50MHz 4y ago
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).

meitros 4y ago

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.

ForOldHack 4y ago

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/ https://code.google.com/archive/p/lunatic-fringe/

ForOldHack 4y ago
Here is the game for the web: http://fringe.jamescarnley.com/ http://fringe.jamescarnley.com/
- pmarreck 4y ago
  this is... not it. it's a weak replica though

dwighttk 4y ago

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 4y ago
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 :)

Waterluvian 4y ago

Spotlight shows a System 7.5 desktop with “1.6GB available.” I don’t believe you. ;)

re 4y ago
That's Mac OS 9, not System 7.5! Almost certainly a screenshot from an emulator though.
dwighttk 4y ago
Power Mac 9500 came with 2GB HD
amatecha 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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 ;) )

readingnews 4y ago

What no Lunatic Fringe? The most awesome screen saver game. Another one was Johnny Castaway, but it was not a game.

tonymet 4y ago

Looking back I wonder how many megawatts were wasted on screen savers and SetiAtHome in the 90s

paulryanrogers 4y ago
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.
- Dalewyn 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    > 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 4y ago
      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 4y ago

konfusinomicon 4y ago

after dark was the best..second only to hey macaroni. next version of this needs to include bungee jumping cows

pmarreck 4y ago

Would love a way to use any of these in Linux, especially Lunatic Fringe and Flying Toasters

acidburnNSA 4y ago
XScreensaver has flying toasters at least. https://manpages.debian.org/wheezy/xscreensaver-gl/flyingtoasters.6x.en.html https://manpages.debian.org/wheezy/xscreensaver-gl/flyingtoa...
masswerk 4y ago
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/ https://www.masswerk.at/flyer/

jiveturkey 4y ago

any ability to install these as system (macOS) screensavers?

jaredsohn 4y ago
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/ https://osxdaily.com/2016/06/05/web-site-as-screen-saver-mac...

samstave 4y ago

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 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.

khazhoux 4y ago

Oh I love trash! I love it because it’s trash.

garbagecoder 4y ago

This makes me feel reeeeeeeeally old.

IIsi50MHz 4y ago
Makes me feel really young! Happy timetravel \(^_^)/

bigfoot675 4y ago

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 4y ago
setTimeout to trigger the screensaver. Restart the timeout on mouse move.
JUNGLEISMASSIVE 4y ago
[dead]

cesaref 4y ago

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 :)

a-dub 4y ago

berkeley systems! they had an office in downtown berkeley that featured a twisty slide that connected the first and second floors!

notbeuller 4y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/19970625091034/http://www.berksys.com/lite/cafeslack/takepic.html https://web.archive.org/web/19970625091034/http://www.berksy...
grood 4y ago
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!

neom 4y ago

CSS Microsoft Bob would be fun. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkU4WWEUj-Y&ab_channel=LGR https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkU4WWEUj-Y&ab_channel=LGR

nobody_nothing 4y ago

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 https://github.com/liquidx/webviewscreensaver

ibbtown 4y ago

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 4y ago

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/ https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/

sasas 4y ago
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.
- ihatepython 4y ago
  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
- swayvil 4y ago
  Is that a testicle in an egg-cup?

overcast 4y ago

I never understood screensavers, I certainly remember my old CRTs in the 90s sleeping. Zero reason for the power draw when not using.

crazygringo 4y ago
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.
- overcast 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    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.
- Dalewyn 4y ago
  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.

meatjuice 4y ago

Cool! I wasn’t born when the Mackintosh was firstly published unfortunately, but these screensavers make me feel nostalgic somehow.

1letterunixname 4y ago

I love this. Recalling there was AD for Windows, DOS, and Mac Classic. I think Amiga also.

tleite 4y ago

dude, this almost made me cry, the nostalgia hit was strong

mortenjorck 4y ago

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?

eric1979 4y ago

Nice! Great nostalgic implementation.