Join the discussion
Write your take first — we'll ask for email only when you're ready to publish.
- Hacker News
- 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.by dallen33
- Yes it works, but you need to enable it in the Afterglow settings first.by jamesfmilne
- Go to the settings in Afterglow first and enable it. Then in Settings Wallpaper tap the 'Screen saver..' button. Select 'Custom' and then scroll and it is the last item to the right in the 'Other' section.by evereverever
- "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?
by dylan604 - 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.by jedberg
- 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.by duskwuff
- In our age of mobile devices, especially with modern phones having always-on displays this nostalgic experience would’ve been appreciated on phones and watches. (They can even show up / start moving only after picking the device for battery concerns :) )
Anyway, the flying toasters has some meditation vibe. Even compared to screensavers back then.
Nice anecdote, With all the changes, screensavers have become less usable with screens being able to simply turn off pixels while toasters are still being used everyday.
by rock_artist - Head's up that this adds a non-trivial amount of CPU load when the screensaver isn't running. On macOS 26, the "legacy screensaver" process takes about 30% once this is enabled [1].by atombender
- jcs has this on their blog.
If you are idle for too long, the flying toasters / screensaver kicks in.
by alberth - 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.
by Backslasher - These are highly nostalgic. My grandfather had a Mac Classic he bought from a friend at work, and it was equipped with After Dark, but also the Looney Tunes sound effects pack (the only one I recall, is that it said "That's all folks" when you shut it down)by swiftcoder
- 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.
by reaperducer - "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
by 45sdasf45 - I need this for Wayland. Maybe when the maintainers discover that joy in computing both exists and can be a worthwhile pursuit.by Scramblejams
- bUt tHeY'Re uNnEcEsSaRy, ThInK Of tHe pOwEr cOnSuMpTiOn! FaLL iN LiNe aNd dO As yOu'rE ToLd, LiNuX Is nOt aBoUt cHoIcE
That said, XScreenSaver does work properly on Wayland now, apart from locking, but I don't need locking on my personal computer in my personal office in my personal house, so that's fine by me!
by theodric - 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.
by rconti - All you needed was a school district that considered it standard software for all computers. I don't know if they licensed it properly... but it was everywhere.by coqadoodle
- 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.
by pogue - If After Dark was made today, would the toast/toasters have been photorealistic or some Material-design take on toast?by xattt
- AFAIK there are a lot of Javascript implementations, e.g.: https://www.bryanbraun.com/after-dark-css/by netsharc
- 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.
by devindotcom - Everyone needs Lunatic Fringe.by ForOldHack
- Did you forget to use that download protocol that lets you resume downloads or were you normal. I think it was zoom something.by cyanydeez
- I need the Star Trek modules
They're there. Installable from within the program.
by reaperducer - Dedicated Lunatic Fringe player: https://morphing.cloud/lunacy/by orangecat