Berkeley Systems “After Dark” screensavers recreated in CSS • Hacker News Board

Re: Berkeley Systems “After Dark” screensavers recreated in CSS

#91

Post by rideontime » Fri, Jul 30, 2021, 3:25 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #6

fredley wrote: post #3

Beautiful. The nostalgia hit me very hard with this. I remember in the original version you had all sorts of options, and could even combine screensavers. For people who may not remember: screensavers used to be a neccessity as old CRT tubes would 'burn in' an image if they held it static for too long - leaving a shadow of the static image permanently. Screensavers kicked in after a few minutes and displayed somethin…

Screensavers are a thing again on modern TV because OLEDs have a pretty serious burn-in problem apparently. Not much creativity there, probably because it should not be annoying, so it's stuff like art galleries or subtle fireworks effects that also 'train' the pixels. Best screensaver I used to have was the BSOD one from xscreensaver, so many people fell for it. Second best is the nyan cat screensaver. Currently hav…

> Best screensaver I used to have was the BSOD one from xscreensaver, so many people fell for it.

Same here - including myself, when I came back from a bathroom break to find it had landed on the MacOS error screen.

Re: Berkeley Systems “After Dark” screensavers recreated in CSS

#92

Post by Arrath » Fri, Jul 30, 2021, 3:28 PM UTC

kergonath wrote: post #45

donatj wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had this happen a couple times to my iMac. The worst time I went on a week long vacation and my screen never went to sleep. I used to use this program that flashed the screen white and black rapidly and it would clear it up in about an hour. Haven’t seen any trouble in a few years, is this a solved problem now?

Can’t recall any burn-in with recent LED displays. AFAIK it is an issue with OLED ones still.

Sure is. My Galaxy S7 has the keyboard and some of the WhatsApp top bar interface (from texting my wife so much) burned in.

Re: Berkeley Systems “After Dark” screensavers recreated in CSS

#93

Post by queuebert » Fri, Jul 30, 2021, 3:33 PM UTC

tekproxy wrote: post #70

zippergz wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep trying to figure out if the internet really was more fun back then, or if I was just younger and less jaded. Maybe both?

Both. The internet was full of early adopter, tech enthusiast types. You'd certainly pickup on this. Maybe a bit of the magic was your youth, but the tech was new and magical to everyone. Every article I read back then was written by a real person about something they cared about. Now it feels like every search result is just 100 pages of AI generated, generic content used to drive clicks to the site. And what conten…

Exactly. When it was young, the internet was about communication. Now it is about money and all the tackiness that comes with it.

Re: Berkeley Systems “After Dark” screensavers recreated in CSS

#94

Post by moftz » Fri, Jul 30, 2021, 3:37 PM UTC

k__ wrote: post #18

When I "played" with the PC of my step dad, I somehow made everything a game. Paint, PowerPoint, even screensavers. Counting elements, making bets with my brother which will appear more often. Pointing fingers at the screen in the hopes nothing will touch it. Good times.

I used to make little movies on our Gateway 2000 with PowerPoint 97 using clipart and slide animations.

Re: Berkeley Systems “After Dark” screensavers recreated in CSS

#95

Post by ctoth » Fri, Jul 30, 2021, 3:38 PM UTC

joezydeco wrote: post #56

fredley wrote: post #3

Beautiful. The nostalgia hit me very hard with this. I remember in the original version you had all sorts of options, and could even combine screensavers. For people who may not remember: screensavers used to be a neccessity as old CRT tubes would 'burn in' an image if they held it static for too long - leaving a shadow of the static image permanently. Screensavers kicked in after a few minutes and displayed somethin…

Oooh now let's talk about PointCast. Who remembers when the future of the Internet was push ? https://www.wired.com/1997/03/ff-push/

> This new medium doesn't wait for clicks. It doesn't need computers. It means personalized experiences not bound by a page - think of a how-to origami video channel or a 3-D furry-muckers VR space. It means information that cascades, not just through a PC, but across all forms of communication devices - headlines sent to a pager, or a traffic map popping up on a cellular phone. And it means content that will not hesitate to find you - whether you've clicked on something recently or not.

Sounds pretty much completely accurate.

Re: Berkeley Systems “After Dark” screensavers recreated in CSS

#96

Post by chmaynard » Fri, Jul 30, 2021, 3:50 PM UTC

The After Dark "Mandelbrot" screensaver introduced me to the beauty of fractals. Anyone know if the source code is available?

Re: Berkeley Systems “After Dark” screensavers recreated in CSS

#97

Post by Udo_Schmitz » Fri, Jul 30, 2021, 3:51 PM UTC

plantain wrote: post #10

It's missing the music! I still remember the Flying Toasters music 20 years later...

And it's flap! Flap! Flap! Now help is on the way.

Re: Berkeley Systems “After Dark” screensavers recreated in CSS

#98

Post by joezydeco » Fri, Jul 30, 2021, 3:57 PM UTC

ctoth wrote: post #95

joezydeco wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oooh now let's talk about PointCast. Who remembers when the future of the Internet was push ? https://www.wired.com/1997/03/ff-push/

> This new medium doesn't wait for clicks. It doesn't need computers. It means personalized experiences not bound by a page - think of a how-to origami video channel or a 3-D furry-muckers VR space. It means information that cascades, not just through a PC, but across all forms of communication devices - headlines sent to a pager, or a traffic map popping up on a cellular phone. And it means content that will not hes…

I think writers for Wired in the 90s were paid by the buzzword.

Re: Berkeley Systems “After Dark” screensavers recreated in CSS

#99

Post by joezydeco » Fri, Jul 30, 2021, 3:58 PM UTC

Cockbrand wrote: post #60

joezydeco wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oooh now let's talk about PointCast. Who remembers when the future of the Internet was push ? https://www.wired.com/1997/03/ff-push/

Haha, PointCast was one of the earliest "next big thing" apps I installed on my Mac in the Dot-com era. I never really found it useful apart from the always available implementation of SameGame.

Man, but didn't it feel like the future? All this information in real time being shown on-screen! What's the weather? What is Ciena's stock price right now?

Never mind those ads that keep showing up, that's just a minor inconvenience, right?

And yeah, I need to keep my modem on all the time and tie up my voice line but maybe someday we'll get that T1 installed in the office.

Re: Berkeley Systems “After Dark” screensavers recreated in CSS

#100

Post by nine_k » Fri, Jul 30, 2021, 3:59 PM UTC

rasz wrote: post #75

On one hand super cool due to tricks employed, on the other CSS animations tend to be very power hungry https://www.bryanbraun.com/after-dark-css/all/rainstorm.html takes Some time ago I noticed an older 3GHz i5 laptop, otherwise perfectly usable, would start to struggle decoding h264 webcam stream because webmaster decided to use CSS animation for a scrolling title bar superimposed over video feed.

That's why it's a good idea to develop for and test on outdated and underpowered hardware, or at least an emulator of it.

Many of your customers won't have top-notch systems.