Ahh, screensavers. Those were a thing.
I recall an old DOS screensaver which featured flying waffle irons; occasionally a missile (unambiguously labelled “PATRIOT”) would fly in from the side and send one of them down in flames. Would anyone here happen to recall the name of this program?
I had After Dark, and loved it! Nostalgia…
Woot! Brings me back to college days.
If anyone needs it, here is one of a multitude of Windows screensavers that will open a website: http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/djmclean/htmlscreensaver.html Works great with this.
When I went to visit my Dad at work as a kid, After Dark was my only source of entertainment. While he wandered off and had long, long, long conversations with coworkers, I’d watch the grass and flowers growing, the rain falling, the geometric patterns and endless rainbow tunnels and starry city skylines. It was a lot more fun than you might think adjusting all the settings and seeing what came up, and I think they even had an actual video game screensaver (Lunatic Fringe, if I recall) where you could pilot a spaceship.
I remember going to a friend’s house and being jealous of his Star Trek TNG After Dark module, where you could watch Data tap dance or Picard and his crew sitting on the bridge spouting lines from the show at random. Even as late as high school, I was enchanted to find that my photography teacher had the original Star Trek After Dark on his computer, with its falling tribbles and Spock wandering around shooting phaser holes in the screen and muttering “Fascinating.” I don’t even use a Mac anymore, but I would pay good money to be able to experience all that again. I guess the toasters are a start.
Didn’t play that one, but I did have a lot of fun with their latter zany-Asteroids-on-steroids Operation: Inner Space. First shareware program I bought back in the time of waiting weeks for diskettes to arrive, and there was even a little thank you card in the envelope promising not to spend all the money on candy and booze (or some such). Good times.
Seems like it’s still a thing. Huh.
It was available for both PC and Mac.
Bring back Johnny Castaway!
This reminds me that I desperately want a web implementation of the Apple ][ version of Brøderbund’s Print Shop that generates PDFs or something.
I can’t hear the music.
This is great! Can we also get Clippy back?
actually, my like is a broken heart.
Oh man, Lunatic Fringe, the memories… I used to play that on the Mac in the junior high school library while the other kids were out developing social skills.
My buddy Steve had that on his Mac back when we were working on Dream On. We both found it hilarious how it would say “Thank Goodness” when you repaired battle damage.
Mine is a fist being shaken in everlasting fury.
Given BoingBoing’s proclivity toward JWZ posts, I’m surprised you didn’t link to xscreensaver, which includes flying toasters, and which is meant to actually lock your screen: https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/
seconded! now that was a screen saver!
