[HN Gopher] After Dark Screensavers in CSS ___________________________________________________________________ After Dark Screensavers in CSS Author : ohjeez Score : 282 points Date : 2023-03-05 17:10 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.bryanbraun.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.bryanbraun.com) | user3939382 wrote: | These guys sell a usable/real one | https://en.infinisys.co.jp/index.shtml Flying toasters has been | my default for a while. Love it. | webwielder2 wrote: | UnderWare was way better | https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/underware | tonymet wrote: | Looking back I wonder how many megawatts were wasted on screen | savers and SetiAtHome in the 90s | paulryanrogers wrote: | Sadly there was (still is?) a mentality that daily turning off | your computer was somehow bad for it. Considering energy | consumption it always seemed crazy to me, even with a nominal | increase in drive wear. | | Steve Gibson still advocates never turning of spinning disks in | this modern era. | logbiscuitswave wrote: | It was definitely worse on old hardware, and with the many | old and unrefurbished computers that are likely inflicted | with capacitor plague, you're likely to blow something up if | you power one up that's been sitting idle in someone's | basement for the past couple decades. | | With modern power management there's less of a reason to | power it off. S3 can power down most peripherals when they | aren't being used and draw just a few watts. | | Even when shut down, the PSU still needs to consume power so | it can turn on when you press the power button, keep the | internal clock running, and a few other things. It's minimal | draw but it's still using electricity. Only way to completely | turn it off is by switching off the PSU (if you can) or | unplugging completely. | Dalewyn wrote: | A computer undergoes the most electrical stress when turning | on, and doubly so for any components that also experience | physical stresses such as HDDs and fans. | | One of the quickest ways to kill a HDD or fan is to make it | spin up its motor from idle frequently as a consequence of | power saving policies. | | Personally, I never turn my computers off unless I know I | won't be using them for extended periods of time (say a week | or two). The power bill savings aren't worth the decreased | hardware life. | paulryanrogers wrote: | > The power bill savings aren't worth the decreased | hardware life. | | For consumer usage I find this hard to believe. I only use | my laptop/desktop's spinning disks like 2h a day at most. | Then there are hybrid disks or systems that are likely | sleeping the disks when use is infrequent. | Dalewyn wrote: | Let me put it this way: | | I have a ~12 year old (110,651 power on hours), 500GB | PATA Maxtor/Seagate HDD with 135 power cycles. | | It's still alive and kicking ass as we speak. | IIsi50MHz wrote: | Hmm, I think we need more evidence to decide which | tradeoffs we're making. I have four 1990s drives with | thousands of power cycles, still fully functional. And | one more from the same time period that failed about 8 | years ago. | | (( Why do I have these? Well, because they're SCSI or | SCSI II, which the hosts support. And because I've not | bothered to replace the drives with solid-state hacks | that put SD cards on the same interface. )) | justsomehnguy wrote: | In my life life of L1 tech I had replaced too many HDDs | to count. | | Sure, the main problem was the subpar PSUs, but are you | sure what your PSU is enough? | Someone wrote: | I don't see how that addresses the claim "The power bill | savings aren't worth the decreased hardware life." | | It might even be the case that, if you bought a | replacement six years ago and kept that powered on 24/7, | you would have ended up paying less in (hardware+power). | timthorn wrote: | Given we're talking of After Dark times, don't forget to | run park before turning the machine off :) | justsomehnguy wrote: | Ramp load/unload still wears it, it's the basic physics. | | And the failure rate of drives with an agressive | powersaving[0] says there are some truth to it. | | [0] WD Green, remembrr them? | Logans_Run wrote: | Given the power consumption of the typical 21+ CRT monitors at | the time it probably saved a whole load of power. | duskwuff wrote: | Not to mention, most computers at the time didn't implement | any kind of idle power savings. Running a flashy screensaver | didn't use any more power than sitting at the desktop. | tomcam wrote: | about 350 | bigfoot675 wrote: | Does anyone know if there is a straightforward way to implement | logic for showing a screen saver like this in a basic website | after X number of minutes without user interaction? | human wrote: | setTimeout to trigger the screensaver. Restart the timeout on | mouse move. | Nition wrote: | In 1997 our school class computer had three particularly fun | screensavers: | | - The one from Microsoft Dangerous Creatures, which would show | wild animals and (if you forgot to tell it not to) also play | their sounds. Fun times when you're all sitting quietly in class | and suddenly the computer plays a lion roar. | | - After Dark. For some reason the flying toasters were endlessly | fascinating back then. | | - One that was a top-down view of a soccer field with an actual | simulated game being played between little AI players. I think | occasionally there was even a streaker. I've never managed to | find this one, does anyone know it? | justsomehnguy wrote: | > you're all sitting quietly in class and suddenly the computer | plays a lion roar | | INTERACTIVITY | samstave wrote: | You know what would be an interesting detail to add to sites: | | The ability to designate a specific background CSS "tab-saver" | such that the base bkgd css is the animation you wanted, so such | as this area: | | https://i.imgur.com/cZuXEq2.png | | The white-space on the sides will play the css saver... but you | can set each background type based on site (kind of like RES on | steriods) | | So that the borders show this CSS... it will allow for a super | fast identification of which tab/site your on (if youre anything | like me and I constantly have multiple windows, with many tabs, | on multiple monitors. | | It would be cool to be able to tack a background to to site | groups such that the edge based animations you select could be | genre specific. | | Favorite sites could be "starred" and any starred site can have a | set bkgd. | | just to make the navigating between content/thought silos can be | faster because you will see the border/bkgd in a faster mental | pattern recognition than reading a URL or even a color. as we can | identify different motions faster than we can other pattern | recogs. | neom wrote: | CSS Microsoft Bob would be fun. | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkU4WWEUj-Y&ab_channel=LGR | konfusinomicon wrote: | after dark was the best..second only to hey macaroni. next | version of this needs to include bungee jumping cows | FollowingTheDao wrote: | Oh my this is bringing me back! I was providing desktop support | for Cisco Systems in North Carolina in 1995 and all anybody | wanted was After Dark screensavers. Messages was popular (We | would often walk to a persons desk and know where they were, | really helpful), as was Rainstorm. | Waterluvian wrote: | Spotlight shows a System 7.5 desktop with "1.6GB available." | | I don't believe you. ;) | re wrote: | That's Mac OS 9, not System 7.5! Almost certainly a screenshot | from an emulator though. | dwighttk wrote: | Power Mac 9500 came with 2GB HD | johnvaluk wrote: | Why does CSS animation consume so much CPU? I've been trying to | use it in my own projects, but the fans kick in even with a | single simple continuous animation. Unfortunately, this | (awesome!) example is no exception. | speedgoose wrote: | It may be an issue with your machine. | Tade0 wrote: | It's probably not the CPU, but the integrated GPU. Browsers are | hardcoded to use that instead of the discrete GPU. | juddgaddie wrote: | Are you running Linux or Windows? On Linux some GPU accelerated | functions are disabled. chrome://gpu/ or firefox - | about:support | cesaref wrote: | I seem to remember you could alter how well done the toast was | done in the preferences for flying toasters. | | I'm also remembering the fish tank slowing down as more fish | appeared on screen on my rather underpowered Mac IIcx back in the | day :) | khazhoux wrote: | Oh I love trash! | | I love it because it's trash. | ibbtown wrote: | Ah you made me think of my favourite screensaver. It was | definitely "Bis ans Ende der Welt" (Until world's end) from the | German post. Watched it many hours as a youth. But I think I miss | a after dark screensaver which I really liked but I can't | remember which one it was | swayvil wrote: | On a related note | | a collection of free screen savers for X11, macOS, iOS and | Android | | by Jamie Zawinski and many others. | | https://www.jwz.org/xscreensaver/ | btown wrote: | For those who saw the Flying Toasters demo and were disappointed | that it didn't have the classic song, I've got you: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjlusi_h_XA | | ... Gleaming angels of love / On mighty toaster wings! | dspillett wrote: | I always liked that they had Ride Of The Valeries as an | alternative. Complete with lyrics. Da da d-da daaa da... | meitros wrote: | This would be fun to add to a personal homepage (can use the | Visibility API): start showing the screensaver when the user | switches to another tab, and hide it/show the content again when | they have a mousemove event on your site. | ForOldHack wrote: | The Warp does not have the space bar jump to hyper space, and it | needs Lunatic Fringe. | | Oh! Its now on Google Code... | https://code.google.com/archive/p/lunatic-fringe/ | ForOldHack wrote: | Here is the game for the web: http://fringe.jamescarnley.com/ | pmarreck wrote: | this is... not it. it's a weak replica though | a-dub wrote: | berkeley systems! | | they had an office in downtown berkeley that featured a twisty | slide that connected the first and second floors! | notbeuller wrote: | https://web.archive.org/web/19970625091034/http://www.berksy... | dang wrote: | Related: | | _After Dark (90 's screensavers) in CSS_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28806699 - Oct 2021 (26 | comments) | | _Berkeley Systems "After Dark" screensavers recreated in CSS_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28006679 - July 2021 (149 | comments) | | _Aggressively Stupid: The Story Behind After Dark (2007)_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22338945 - Feb 2020 (23 | comments) | | _After Dark in CSS_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14429271 - May 2017 (1 | comment) | | _After Dark in CSS_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10935432 - Jan 2016 (2 | comments) | | _After Dark in CSS_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9675287 - June 2015 (2 | comments) | | _Aggressively Stupid: The Story Behind After Dark (2007)_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7702105 - May 2014 (11 | comments) | | _Aggressively Stupid: The Story Behind After Dark_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1338175 - May 2010 (3 | comments) | nobody_nothing wrote: | For those on Mac who want to configure these (or any web page) as | your actual screensaver, you can use WebViewScreenSaver[0]. | | [0]: https://github.com/liquidx/webviewscreensaver | pmarreck wrote: | Would love a way to use any of these in Linux, especially Lunatic | Fringe and Flying Toasters | acidburnNSA wrote: | XScreensaver has flying toasters at least. | | https://manpages.debian.org/wheezy/xscreensaver-gl/flyingtoa... | dwighttk wrote: | I think starry night was my go-to, and I'm surprised to not see | it here as it seems like it would be easier than a couple they | did like toasters and fish. | readingnews wrote: | What no Lunatic Fringe? | | The most awesome screen saver game. | | Another one was Johnny Castaway, but it was not a game. | infl8ed wrote: | wow that sweet nostalgia, did anyone else also experience the | psychedlic 'timeless' animation sequence? | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAAziY-KiBQ | atum47 wrote: | Do you remember Johnny Castaway? That was fun! Back when I used | to have some more free time I thought about implementing | Nostalgic stuff like that. | | I have a "partially done" ray cast 2d experiment [1] which was an | attempt at wolf graphics. You could use it to recreate the "maze" | one. Not sure it can be done using CSS only though. | | 1 - https://github.com/victorqribeiro/myRaycast | Joeri wrote: | I spent hours watching that guy, always hoping I would see him | do something new. | tshaddox wrote: | Johnny Castaway was one of the first things to cause young me | to experience genuine wonder at the vast and unpredictable | possibilities of computers. | nu11ptr wrote: | Every day I'd make sure the screensaver came on just to see | what he would do that particular day. I still miss that | screensaver. | overcast wrote: | I never understood screensavers, I certainly remember my old CRTs | in the 90s sleeping. Zero reason for the power draw when not | using. | dbg31415 wrote: | Where's Lunatic Fringe? | morsch wrote: | I have fond memories of that as well. I think I first played it | on a holiday on my dad's black and white PowerBook. Those fast | enemies with the blade-like front were terrifying. | | What's the spiritual successor? | ellisv wrote: | Also missing Mowin' Man and a bunch of other good ones | ForOldHack wrote: | My very first question! I was actually hearing that odd yell | sound in my head. | jiveturkey wrote: | any ability to install these as system (macOS) screensavers? | jaredsohn wrote: | Could look into how to show a webpage as the screensaver. | | From a Google search: https://osxdaily.com/2016/06/05/web-site- | as-screen-saver-mac... | garbagecoder wrote: | This makes me feel reeeeeeeeally old. | IIsi50MHz wrote: | Makes me feel really young! Happy timetravel \\(^_^)/ | VonGuard wrote: | After Dark now works in the browser thanks to Archive.org. Here | are some examples: | | Disney After Dark: https://archive.org/details/after-dark-disney | | After Dark 3.2 for Windows: | https://archive.org/details/AFTERDARK32_WIN | | After Dark Looney Toons: https://archive.org/details/LOONEY_WIN | | After Dark for Macintosh 2.0: | https://archive.org/details/AfterDark_mac | | After Dark Simpsons: https://archive.org/details/SIMPSONS_WIN ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-03-05 23:00 UTC)