Screensavers!
Saving our CRT screens from phosphor burns since the dark ages.
Now-days, screensavers are more for frivolous entertainment, but back when monitors were
as deep as they were wide, the Cathode Ray Tube electron gun could erode the phosphor
screen coating when showing a persistent image for a long period of time, creating a ghost
image which would never leave.
A bit like how concentrating a ray of sunlight on a particular spot will eventually burn
it.
However move that spot around and no damage will be done.
I for one, heavily associate screen savers with Microsoft Windows 3.1.
Mainly because that's the environment I first experienced them as a native operative system
feature, but Screen Savers have been with us for a good while before that.
The concept of a screen saver was even alluded to in the 1961 Robert Heinlein novel, Stranger
in a Strange Land.
"They went to the living room; Jill sat at this feet and they applied themselves to martinis.
Opposite his chair was a stereovision tank disguised as an aquarium; he switched it on,
guppies and tetras gave way to the face of the well-known winchell Augustus Greaves"
In 1979 the Atari 400 and 800 range of computers would initiate a screensaver like routine
if they were left inactive for too long.
A feature which was also present in certain games for the Atari 2600 such as Combat or
Breakout, saving lounge televisions from ruin, and the games console from being thrown in
the bin by raging parents.
In 1983 the Apple Lisa came with a built in screen blanking routine that would activate
after a time which could be manipulated by the user.
But in this video, I want to explore one small collection of screen-savers created especially
for Microsoft DOS.
Now, DOS may not evoke feelings of need for a screen saving application.
I mean, most of the screen is black anyway.
But then, most of the badly burnt screens I've seen over the years, have held the mark
of that unmistakable command prompt, perhaps showing a directory listing, or even the border
of a text based editing program.
After all, the contrast of bright text on a black backdrop is a stark contrast, and
therefore the perfect perpetrator for burningggggg.
The first application coined with the term "Screen Saver" was purportedly written in
1983 for DOS by John Socha - the creator of Norton Commander and it was simply called
scrnsave.
It was a Terminate and Stay Resident program, which after being initially executed, allowed
it to trigger the blackout routine after 3 minutes of inactivity, leaving the operator
secure and safe in the knowledge that their screen would be as fresh as a daisy when they
came back to it.
Various other programs then followed.
Some Terminate and Stay Resident, but the vast majority need to be manually run by the
user before leaving their desk.
So, let's begin with this classic from 1989.
Written by G McPhail, this freeware screensaver is one of those on demand programs.
Revealing a small collection of flies ambling around a zapper.
Once in a while the fly algorithm with cause a blighter to hit the zapper, for which we
are rewarded with sound.
This is 1989 excitement right here folks, and to be honest, I would have watched this
for hours, or at least just left it running on my screen for hours.
The only real problem is the static floor, pole and zapper don't make for a great screensaver,
although being cast in dull colours helps reduce burn.
Next, by Bob Siegel.
EYE.
The Eye is apparently observing whats going on in the world today, and given this assignment,
it looks suitably horrified at what it sees.
So we can presume it's working.
Sitting there, judging us all.. in a well of disdain and contempt.
The eye will occasionally expand, and if you dare to press a key, a good degree of bulging
will occur, along with a sound implying you should probably stop interrupting it's observations.
ESC however will return to you the DOS prompt.
Let it Rain...
With Rain.EXE.
Another 1989 affair, this time by Jay Wherley.
This little program simulates multi-coloured rain drops, falling on the screen.
You get a random background colour each time you start whilst remaining smug and secure
in the knowledge that you own a VGA graphics card capable of displaying an unprecedented
number of colours.
and sticking with the 256 colours offered by VGA, we have TUNNEL.
A trippy, multi-coloured experience, which would have blown EGA and CGA owners back into
their caves of misery.
Here's one of my personal favorites.
This spent a lot of time on my screen, as I ate my tea in front of GamesMaster, safely
content that my screen would be in pristine condition when I returned.
Plasma starts out by creating a image which reminds me of Global Hyper Color T-Shirts.
Once created, a colour cycle operation is repeated, creating this trance inducing effect.
You can delete the Plasma.IMG base file and start again, or just run Plasma based on this
existing image in the future, for rapid entry into this hyper colour dream world.
Just to round off this colour bonanza, we have VGAGLOW.
A more fractal inspired affair, which has a number of settings and colour palette swaps.
Seriously, this would have entertained me for a day.
In fact, it still might.
Alright, let's look at some more fun screen savers.
Screen savers with OPTIONS.
Everyone needs a virtual fish tank in their lives.
It harks even back to that novel I mentioned earlier, so what better than AQUARIUM by Ron
Gray, version 1.045.
This version is from 1992 and boy, does it offer some customisation options.
You can opt for a blue or black background, you can have wall paper, you can even choose
to show the tank wrap around, with bubbles and the floor, and all that malarkey.
But of course, you, like I, want to see the tank with every single option enabled.
ALL OF THE THINGS.
And this is what it looks like.
Isn't it a glorious feat for the eyes and senses.
So many fish, packed so densely in an EGA high resolution tank and with such a tiny
frame rate.
THIS is realism that would have been unfathomable in the 80s.
I can only hope that is the exact image in Robert Heinlein's mind when he wrote Stranger
in a Strange Land.
Because Aquarium is a REAL Attention Getter.
To be fair, it kept my undivided attention for a good hour.
I've got a few more to show you.
Screamer is a memory resident, key activated screen saver which actually locks your computer.
Should an intruder attempt to gain access and not enter the correct unlock "key", then
they'll be graced with this message.
God I miss DOS programs.
FIRE does a pretty good job at simulating fire, and even shows us our average frame
rate.... of TWO FRAMES PER SECOND.
BUSH, gives us the original George Bush in all his facial glory.
Inner Mission is one of the all time classics, a star field, with some nicely coloured pixels.
Fantasy is worth a mention, and not just because it was coded in QuickBASIC, but because it
creates some nice effects, and I'm particularity fond on the fact it doesn't bother removing
the previous graphic entirely from the screen before starting a new one.
Kind of like, "That'll do son!, let's move on".
SNOW is actually a memory resident screen saver, written in 1995 by Kevin Krausnick,
which provides a quite realistic representation of TV static, which is both attention grabbing,
and perfect for pretending that your PC actually has a TV card as well.
And it's not like DOS Screen savers died in the 90s, because this one by Bruno Felix Rezende
Ribeiro, called DCMATRIX is from 2015 and in it's own words; Is a program designed to
decode the Matrix into decimal.
It is based on the premis ethat it's easier for people to become proficient in interpreting
the Matrix code if instead of dealing with very cryptic symbols rolling down the screen,
they could deal with static and familiar symbols.
I dunno about you, but, yesssss.
I think I can start to make out..
No, I can see f*ck all.
But, it's cool none the less.
Now there are so many more DOS screensavers than what I've demonstrated here, and many
cross over in the demo scene.
Programs like Nightbird and Sparkwood by Nicholas Centanni were used to showcase the XYZ++ 3D
graphics library in 1993, whilst LSDino was a show case in itself of VGA capabilities.
But before I draw this DOS screensaver escapade to an end.
There's one more thing to discuss, and that is After Dark for DOS.
Now After Dark is the popular screen saving prorgram created by Berkeley Systems in 1989
for the Macinstosh, and later in 1991 for Microsoft Windows.
I'll cover this in more detail in the next video, when I look at Screen savers in GUIs.
But this DOS version was actually released, after the Windows version, in 1993.
Mainly because DOS was still incredibly popular, even in a post Windows 3.1 world.
The DOS version is memory resident.
It has a load of options, but most importantly, it retains many of the screen savers from
the Windows versions.
So I'll leave you with some After Dark, and hopefully catch
you on the next video.