Aggressively Stupid: The Story Behind After Dark (2007) • Hacker News Board

Re: Aggressively Stupid: The Story Behind After Dark (2007)

#31

Post by Theodores » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 8:26 PM UTC

dkrich wrote: post #11

Theodores wrote: post #7

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…

That wasn't really the purpose of the article, though. It was an interview with the creator of an iconic piece of software from a time that ushered in widespread use of personal computers. Should historians not write about the Battle of Gettysburg because it should never have been fought in the first place?

I felt the author saw that the software hadn't been properly stewarded by the various software houses that inherited it. However, I felt that it was a novelty product in the first place plus the then 'evil' Microsoft took away their Mac market by dominating the marketplace with Windows and then building a fairly reasonable screen saver into the operating system.

This is a bit like studying a battle and not mentioning the enemy or the terrain, blaming the marketing department of Lockheed Martin for it going wrong.

Re: Aggressively Stupid: The Story Behind After Dark (2007)

#32

Post by Marc66FR » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 8:43 PM UTC

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

Re: Aggressively Stupid: The Story Behind After Dark (2007)

#33

Post by tracker1 » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 8:56 PM UTC

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.

Re: Aggressively Stupid: The Story Behind After Dark (2007)

#34

Post by DonutATX » Tue, Aug 01, 2017, 9:00 PM UTC

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

Re: Aggressively Stupid: The Story Behind After Dark (2007)

#35

Post by mrpippy » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 4:21 AM UTC

salgernon wrote: post #27

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…

Fascinating! Do you remember which traps you patched? :) jGNEFilter?

Re: Aggressively Stupid: The Story Behind After Dark (2007)

#36

Post by golemotron » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 12:40 PM UTC

Theodores wrote: post #7

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…

> 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.

But then we would've had to store it in Leyden Jars.. millions and millions of Leyden Jars.

Re: Aggressively Stupid: The Story Behind After Dark (2007)

#37

Post by JoeAltmaier » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 1:02 PM UTC

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.

Re: Aggressively Stupid: The Story Behind After Dark (2007)

#38

Post by cardiffspaceman » Wed, Aug 02, 2017, 4:29 PM UTC

pavel_lishin wrote: post #21

cardiffspaceman wrote: post #13

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 pre…

Could you write it for XSCreensaver?

> Could you write it for XSCreensaver?

Probably. A deeper answer would be off-topic, in my judgement.

Re: Aggressively Stupid: The Story Behind After Dark (2007)

#39

Post by st3fan » Fri, Aug 04, 2017, 12:49 AM UTC

mrpippy wrote: post #35

salgernon wrote: post #27

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…

Fascinating! Do you remember which traps you patched? :) jGNEFilter?

jGNEFilter was not a trap but a low memory pointer to a function to intercept or filter events.