A blast from the past.

[joglynne]

I saw this article on the Register this morning and it brought back memories.

To be honest I had forgotten all about the screen savers I used to use and seeing the bouncing ball reminded me of the times I would find my young son slumped over the keyboard fast asleep after a tiring session of trying to get to grips with programming. I would never have imagined that the 10 year old I had chivvy off to bed would now be an IT Platform and Infrastructure Manager.

A Washington-based coder named Bryan Braun has recreated one of the curiosities of the early PC age: animated screensavers featuring flying toasters. And the resurrection has been effected using cascading style sheets.

For the young or forgetful, the late eighties and early 90s were the time of the animated screensaver. The cathode-ray-tube monitors of the day were felt to suffer from “burn-in”, a condition that meant images displayed for thousands of hours would etch themselves in ghostly form on the screen. That shading made using early editions of Mac OS, Windows 3.x or OS/2 even more miserable than was already the case on the anaemic hardware of the day. Animated screen savers were the antidote and became a business for a software outfit called Berkeley Systems, whose After Dark screen saver compendium adorned many a PC.

Burn-in turned out to be very difficult to achieve, but for a while their animated screen savers were a thing, and clearly a thing capable of inspiring nostalgia. <snip>

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/03...urn_on_github/

Screen Savers

[joglynne]

Not as early as the screensavers mentioned already but I do vividly remember going to my computer the day after my 'darling' son had upgraded it for me and finding that I had a cow jumping around the screen.

He swore it had no hidden meaning but I have often wondered as I realise I must have been a trial to him at times as I refused to fit into the stereotype that a normal 'mum' was supposed to conform to.

[Mal]

Originally Posted by heero_yuy

Two I fondly remember and probably still have somewhere were "Gates does Windows" and those sheep.



Not so much screen savers as just very amusing.

I remember the picture of the sheep, but for the life of me, I can't remember what they did.

As soon as I realised I could make my own screensaver using my own pictures I continued to do so.

I currently have all the wonderful realistic art work I find around the internet wandering across my screen.

[joglynne]

Originally Posted by heero_yuy

As I recall they used to wander around your windows, sometimes sit down and blink at you. Then there was a black sheep that used to chase across the screen and then some aliens beamed one up.

If I can find the .exe I'll post it for those that want to take a punt. Might still work.

Is this link any use heero?

http://nekonatsume.deviantart.com/ar...-exe-289696287

[Mal]

Originally Posted by heero_yuy

As I recall they used to wander around your windows, sometimes sit down and blink at you. Then there was a black sheep that used to chase across the screen and then some aliens beamed one up.

If I can find the .exe I'll post it for those that want to take a punt. Might still work.

That was it. Thanks

[damien c]

The only Screensaver that I really ever used was the Dancing Baby or Drunken Baby cannot remember which it was.

Now I don't bother with them, I just turn my monitor off.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by damien c

The only Screensaver that I really ever used was the Dancing Baby or Drunken Baby cannot remember which it was.

Now I don't bother with them, I just turn my monitor off.

I remember that, everyone had it on there laptops at work