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\n\tBack in April of last year, I took you on a trip down memory lane in the gallery titled Flying Toasters – A look back at After Dark for Windows 1.0. Well, I recently came across a copy of After Dark 3.0, which Berkeley Systems released in the summer of 1994, and figured that it was time to take another trip. This version of the program came with 28 great screen savers and sported a new feature that allowed the program to automatically power down Energy Star compliant monitors. While by today’s standards this may not seem like a big deal, it this was back in the Windows 3.x days.
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\n\tThe other cool thing about After Dark 3.0 was that several of the screen savers were actually interactive.
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\n\tI’ve compiled this gallery to show each of the screen savers along with their associated configuration options so that we can all look back at them and reminisce. Enjoy!
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tThe Energy Star feature in After Dark 3,0 was called EcoLogic and you configured it in Setup on the EcoLogic tab. As you can see, if you typed in the monitor’s energy usage, After Dark 3.0 would calculate the energy cost as well as the estimated annual savings
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tIn the Artist screen saver, you selected an image, such as the Windows Splash screen, selected a medium, such as Pastel, and watched as the image was drawn on the screen.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tIn Bad Dog!, a little dog roamed around the screen all the while digging holes, scratching the wall, and shedding. It even brought a trash can onto the desktop in order to relieve itself.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tIn Bugs, a swarm of insects crawled all over your desktop while avoiding the Baits Motel.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tIn Clocks 3.0, you could select from a number of clocks, which floated across your screen. This composite image shows six of the different clocks.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tDaredevil Dan was motorcycle stunt man who raced his bike all over the screen while making daring jumps over buses and through flames. Occasionally he fell off his bike and was then rescued by an ambulance. This composite image shows several of Daredevil Dan’s exploits.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tIn DOS Shell, you chose a common DOS color scheme, such as Green or Amber, and the screen saver displayed a never ending list of simulated DOS commands in the fictitious AD-DOS.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tIn Draw Morph you could choose one of several stop motion-like animations, such as Pipecleaner Man, who walked and performed somersaults on the screen. If you were feeling artistic, you could use the Edit button to create your own series of still images that would then be animated.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tYou used the very rudimentary Morph-O-Matic editor to create your own images for the Draw Morph screen saver.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tIn Fish Pro, your screen became an aquarium with fish and other sea creatures swimming back and forth across the seabed.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tOf course, After Dark 3.0 included the infamous flying toasters. In this version, called Flying Toasters Pro, you’d see a squadron of toasters flying across the screen, some performing trick maneuvers, while accompanied by toasted bread, which flew along side or popped in and out of various toasters.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tIn Frost and Fire, interesting patterns emerged as the center of the image spun in circles while various colors splattered across it.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tIn Guts, random icons or other small images flew across the screen, leaving trails as they were pulled this way and that by a fluctuating gravitational field. Here you can see the After Dark, Program Manager and Notepad icons flying all over the screen.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tIn Logo, images floated across the screen. By default, the After Dark logo was used, but you could use any image you wanted.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tIn Messages, a text message floated across the screen. You could choose from several whacky messages or type your own.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tIn Nirvana, shifting patterns appeared on the screen and dazzled you with their intricacy.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tIn Nonsense, randomly generated sentences appeared on the screen. While they didn’t always make sense, they were usually grammatically correct.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tPhoton created displayed bright patterns on the screen that resembled a laser light show.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tIn Puzzle, the desktop became a sliding puzzle and the pieces began shuffling all over the screen.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tIn Rat Race, three rats waddled onto a race track on your screen and lined up at their starting gates. The gun fired and off they went. The training setting determined their skill level, which ranged from Drop Out to Professional.
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\n\tI remember back in the day, a couple of friends and I would gather around my high powered computer (a Dell Dimension 486 running at a whopping 66 MHz, with 16MB of RAM and 450MB hard disk, topped off with a 15-inch SVGA monitor) and bet quarters on each race. Ha, those were the days!
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tIn Ray, colorful, transparent, rotating shapes would slowly move across your desktop.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tIn Rebound hundreds of metal and/or plastic balls would fly across the screen.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tIn Rose, interesting patterns appeared on the screen and slowly grew larger while rotating ever so slightly.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tIn Satori, colorful tie-dye-like patterns slowly emerged and swirled on the desktop.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tIn Slide Show, you’d see a simple slide show of images of your choice. Here, you see the infamous flying toaster.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tIn Spheres, a host of colorful spheres are rendered on the screen creating the illusion of dimensionality.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tIn Spotlight, the screen went black and spotlights appeared and illuminated parts of the desktop.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tIn Warp!, you saw a Star Trek effect, where colorful stars suddenly swirl past as the warp drive engages.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tYou Bet Your Head was a trivia game in which the whacky animated contestants competed for equally whacky prizes. If they answered wrong, the MC, a hammer (get it?), would pound them flat. If you wanted to take over, you pressed Caps Lock and then used the number keys to select your answer.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tZooommm! created colorful tube like images that appeared to move towards you. This screen saver was mesmerizing and was a favorite at the end of a long workday for many people in my office.
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\n\tImage created by Greg Shultz for TechRepublic.
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\n\tIf you are interested in old screen savers, then you might want to check out the Dinosaur Sightings: Star Trek – The Screen Saver gallery.
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My first computer was a Kaypro 16 \"luggable\" running MS-DOS 2.11 which I obtained while studying computer science in 1986. After two years, I discovered that I had a knack for writing documentation and shifted my focus over to technical writing.
