Afterglow: Run classic After Dark screen savers on modern macOS

(morphing.cloud)

107 points | by NaOH a day ago ago

37 comments

  • devindotcom 8 hours ago ago

    I need the Star Trek modules, which I recall waiting overnight to pirate from a BBS on my 14.4k. "Do NOT pick up the phone, mom."

    Also Lunatic Fringe - somehow and for some reason a full top down space shoot-em-up in After Dark. Probably for office workers to play, I do recall there was a "boss mode" that pulled up a fake spreadsheet or something.

  • rconti 2 hours ago ago

    The original After Dark, distributed on floppy in 1989, 1.1MB, was $110 in today's money. More than $7 per screen saver!

    Of course, the target market of computer users was way smaller than it is today.

  • pogue 19 hours ago ago

    I need this for Windows.

    The After Dark screensavers are on the internet archive, but obviously they look and run like crap since they're made for Windows 3.x to maybe 95/98.

    • netsharc 7 hours ago ago

      AFAIK there are a lot of Javascript implementations, e.g.: https://www.bryanbraun.com/after-dark-css/

      • pogue 5 hours ago ago

        I appreciate the link, but as far as using it aa a screen saver, that's not what I'm looking for.

        I would think if this mac After Dark project is open source, the assets would be available to use in other software.

    • xattt an hour ago ago

      If After Dark was made today, would the toast/toasters have been photorealistic or some Material-design take on toast?

  • Backslasher 5 hours ago ago

    Semi-related, I redid just the other day the Flying Toasters in-browser with the full logic from the original, toast-juggler and everything.

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49432857

    Thought about doing it as a Linux screensaver, but I didn't have the patience to actually wait for the idle time, and that way I can share it with my non-Linux-using family.

  • Scramblejams 8 hours ago ago

    I need this for Wayland. Maybe when the maintainers discover that joy in computing both exists and can be a worthwhile pursuit.

  • dylan604 9 hours ago ago

    "You can also browse and install software releases directly from the Internet Archive without leaving the app. "

    That's a fine line being walked there. If they are worried about rights issues and not including the bundles, this seems like a risky FU by building this feature in directly. The part about using bundles you may have without asking questions of origin is fine. Otherwise, why not just include the bundles?

    • duskwuff 3 hours ago ago

      From a pragmatic perspective: Berkeley Systems went through a long chain of acquisitions in the late 90s/early 2000s and eventually ended up under Vivendi, which hasn't done anything significant with the rights since a Flying Toasters themed J2ME game [1] in 2006. I doubt very much that they're going to do anything.

      [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESZSufoTPBs

    • jedberg 8 hours ago ago

      This is pretty well trod legally. By the user taking a specific action, it makes the user responsible. Comma.ai uses the same technique. Technically their self driving hardware comes with no software. You have to click a button and point it at their GitHub to get the software on it, but it's automatic after that.

      • schoen 7 hours ago ago

        We lost a Supreme Court case in 2005 on "inducement liability" (not a familiar copyright doctrine before that).

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM_Studios,_Inc._v._Grokster,....

        I'm not sure if this doctrine has continued to be applied to anything else.

        • jedberg 7 hours ago ago

          That's a good point. The other examples didn't involve copyright.

          Hopefully since it's so old, the copyright holders are cool about it.

          ps. Hi Seth, good to see you around!

      • CaliforniaKarl 8 hours ago ago

        I forget, doesn't Audacity also have you do this, if you want to be able to export projects as MP3?

        • dylan604 7 hours ago ago

          yes, although the I recently tried doing this on a cloud Ubuntu instance, and it refused to see the .so file

      • micromacrofoot 6 hours ago ago

        winamp did something similar, you actually had to whip the llamas ass yourself

  • temp0826 4 hours ago ago

    I get the nostalgia factor, but is it actually a good idea to use screensavers on modern monitors rather than letting them sleep?

    • snazz 4 hours ago ago

      Leaving it on all the time would probably dim the backlight eventually more than turning it off, but I’m sure the monitor could handle it. Mostly a waste of energy.

  • dallen33 7 hours ago ago

    Has anyone been able to make this actually work as a macOS screensaver? I'm using Tahoe and when I go to System Settings -> Wallpapers -> Screensavers, I don't see any option to select like Afterglow or any of the wallpapers I installed.

    • jamesfmilne 6 hours ago ago

      Yes it works, but you need to enable it in the Afterglow settings first.

  • taocoyote 3 hours ago ago

    We need this for the Death Toasters from Opus 'n Bill: Brain Saver

  • sharts 4 hours ago ago

    I’m surprised still that there hasn’t been a port of the classic old old Windows screensavers.

    • cube00 2 hours ago ago

      They're not as satisfying on today's high resolution displays unless you wanted to also redraw the artwork.

  • CodeWriter23 7 hours ago ago

    Anyone get this running? I installed and downloaded content but cannot figure out how to get it to appear under Screen Savers in System Settings.

    • nickt 6 hours ago ago

      In screen savers, scroll to the bottom - and click on the easy to miss "Show All" on the right side. You should see Afterglow in the expanded list.

    • jamesfmilne 6 hours ago ago

      You need to enable the Screen Saver module in the Afterglow settings first. Works great.

  • alberth 6 hours ago ago

    jcs has this on their blog.

    https://jcs.org/

    If you are idle for too long, the flying toasters / screensaver kicks in.

  • nodesocket 3 hours ago ago

    Is there just the one Mowin' Man in More After Dark?

  • reaperducer 8 hours ago ago

    I wish someone would do this for a recently deceased OS X screen saver I loved.

    Someone went through the film 2001: A Space Odyssey and re-created all of the computer screens, with animation.

    It was a masterpiece of mid-century design and space-age optimism.

    IIRC, the author got a cease-and-desist demand, and was left to languish and die when Macs went 64-bit only.

    • 45sdasf45 8 hours ago ago

      "HAL 9000". This blog has how to do it on modern machines: https://www.fluffytech.co.uk/fluff/the-hal-project/#top

      general idea, rip the 4k vids from YT and use a video screensaver app

      • dylan604 4 hours ago ago

        Took a look to links from your link to get to the 4K YT. At first I wasn't that impressed until I realized it was defaulting to 480p. The 2160 stream looks amazing. Sadly, being it's a YT stream, that might be the cleanest I've seen clips from that movie. Color me impressed as I go off to find the full movie like that.