Space voyages, mazes, a city lit by a starry night, 3D pipes, and even flying toasters. The screen savers have given rise to all kinds of designs and animations that fortunately went far beyond their original role. Today, very few users still activate them, and the latest developments suggest a kind of formal retirement, so I think it's a good time to review the most outstanding examples.
A retirement in the making
Last week we talked about the retirement of Paint. The Web united in a cry of nostalgia and sadness at the news, so Microsoft decided to allow its existence as an app in the official Windows store. However, the text that reported Paint's exit in the first place also has another entry: Redmond plans to disable screen saver functions (or "screen saver" if you prefer) in the Themes section, while in Control Panel and Group Policies they will be declared "obsolete". In fact, it's already quite complicated to activate a screen saver in Windows 10 (Settings - Personalization - Lock Screen - Screen Saver Settings), and only a couple of classics remain on the list.
Why screen savers existed
Now, Microsoft carries the blame for "hiding" the screen saver configuration, but it had nothing to do with its loss of popularity. Let's see: As its name suggests, the presence of a screen saver was critical to protecting our monitors in the past. When displaying a static image for several hours a day (say, an interface), the phosphor in those old CRTs would "burn", leaving a ghost image. Monochrome CRT monitors suffered a lot from burn-in, and we can still find old units with traces of forgotten programs. The first line of defense was obviously turning off the monitor, but screen savers became a far superior alternative, both technically and artistically. The essential goal was to keep pixels moving, and with that basis, wonderful things were created.
The unforgettable After Dark
By far, my favorite screen saver was "Starry Night", one of the original modules in the famous After Dark. The city lights, a perfect night, and the occasional shooting star easily broke the monotony and routine in front of the computer, but a large number of users knew After Dark through its flying toasters, Flying Toasters. The toasters were so popular that they ended up wrapped in two lawsuits: The first pitted its developer Berkeley Systems against a Canadian competitor named Delrina, and the second involved the rock band Jefferson Airplane for the cover of its album "Thirty Seconds Over Winterland". After Dark delivered dozens of screen savers in its five major versions, under the three main operating systems of the time: MS-DOS, Windows, and Mac OS.
The legacy lives on
The history of After Dark came to an end in 1996, and Berkeley was acquired by Sierra On-Line a year later, but operating systems filled the void. Windows presented unforgettable screen savers like the 3D Maze, the Starfield (which was almost a trip on the Enterprise), the Haunted House, and "Fish". However, the screen saver as a creative canvas reached a new level several years before Microsoft did its part. In 1992, the aforementioned Sierra On-Line launched Johnny Castaway, a screen saver that told the story of Johnny, a castaway stranded on an island constantly seeking the possibility of rescue, unsuccessfully. Johnny Castaway included events associated with specific dates, such as Halloween and Christmas.
A digital curiosity
Technically, flat screens are much more resistant to burn-in, and with advances in energy saving, screen savers are barely a digital curiosity. Still, no matter how much they have accompanied us for decades, the truth is that they never abandoned their temporary profile. After all, permanence was not a luxury at their disposal, and a simple mouse movement would send them back to the background. But if you leave your computer on and the monitor stays active for a while, why not configure one?
Source: Slate
