After Dark is a series of computer screensaver software introduced by Berkeley Systems in 1989 for the Apple Macintosh, and in 1991 for Microsoft Windows.
Following the original, additional editions included More After Dark, Before Dark, and editions themed around licensed properties such as Star Trek, The Simpsons, Looney Tunes, and Disney characters.
On top of the included animated screensavers, the program allowed for the development and use of third-party modules, many hundreds of which were created by the height of After Dark's popularity.
Video After Dark (software)
Flying Toasters
The most famous of the included screensaver modules is the iconic Flying Toasters which featured 1940s-style chrome toasters sporting bird-like wings, flying across the screen with pieces of toast. Engineer Jack Eastman came up with the display after seeing a toaster in the kitchen during a late night programming session and imagining the addition of wings. A slider in the Flying Toasters module enabled users to adjust the toast's darkness and an updated Flying Toasters Pro module added a choice of music--Richard Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries or a flying toaster anthem with optional karaoke lyrics. Yet another version called Flying Toasters! added bagels and pastries, baby toasters, and more elaborate toaster animation. The Flying Toasters were one of the key reasons that After Dark became popular, and Berkeley began to produce other merchandising products such as T-shirts, with the Flying Toaster image and slogans such as "The 51st Flying Toaster Squadron: On a mission to save your screen!"
The toasters were the subject of two lawsuits, the first in 1993, Berkeley Systems vs Delrina Corporation, over a module of Delrina's Opus 'N Bill screensaver in which Opus the penguin shoots down the toasters. After a U.S. District judge ruled that Delrina's "Death Toasters" was infringing, Delrina later changed the wings of the toasters to propellers. The second case was brought in 1994 by 1960s rock group Jefferson Airplane who claimed that the toasters were a copy of the winged toasters featured on the cover of their 1973 album Thirty Seconds Over Winterland. The case was dismissed because the cover art had not been registered as a trademark by the group prior to Berkeley Systems' release of the screensaver.
A 3D version of the toasters featuring swarms of toasters with airplane wings, rather than bird wings, is available for XScreenSaver.
A flying toaster was used as a logo of the club called Peach Pit After Dark in the TV series Beverly Hills 90210.
Maps After Dark (software)
After Dark Games and onward
Sierra Interactive and Berkeley Systems released After Dark Games in 1998 for the Macintosh and Windows platforms, which contained several games modeled after their previously released screensavers. These games included Mowin' Maniac (a Pac-Man clone based on the "Mowin' Man"/"Mowin' Boris" modules), Roof Rats (similar to SameGame and variants), "Solitaire" (After Dark themed), Toaster Run (a 3D adventure game featuring several After Dark Characters, including the Flying Toaster), Zapper (a trivia game), Hula Girl (another 3D adventure game based on the "Hula Twins" module from After Dark 4.0), two word scramble games -- Bad Dog 911 (based on the "Bad Dog" modules) and Fish Shtix (based on the "Fish" modules, mainly "Fish World"), Foggy Boxes (a connect the boxes type game based on the "Messages 4.0" module), MooShu tiles (a Mahjong-like game featuring many After Dark characters throughout the years), and Rodger Dodger. "Rodger Dodger" had been a module several years earlier, but also a playable game inside the module. Not much was changed from the module, except some of the music and most of the level set-ups. Many fans liked the games, but some felt it lacked games based on more fitting modules, such as "Daredevil Dan", "Lunatic Fringe" (which was a game inside its module, like "Rodger Dodger"), and the After Dark re-working of "Rock, Paper Scissors" (also a game inside its module).
In 1997, Berkeley Systems was acquired by the Sierra On-Line division of CUC International. Joan Blades and Wes Boyd, the founders of Berkeley Systems, went on to create MoveOn.org.
Fans have made modern versions of several of the screensavers in the years since.
An official version of After Dark was released for Mac OS X (running on PowerPC) by Infinisys Ltd (of Japan) in May 2003. For Intel Macs, three of the most popular modules--Flying Toasters, Mowing Man and Boris--are being sold as standalone screensavers.
Sierra released a Flying Toaster video game for cell phones in 2006.
The animated series Bad Dog was inspired by the eponymous screensaver.
The 28 year copyright duration expired in 2018, prompting NeoTech Enterprises to take over the orphaned work. So far, 25 screensavers have been released for NeoTech's After Dark 5.0 which is said to be compatible with modern Microsoft Windows operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows 7 and Microsoft Windows 10
Modules
- An edition called After Dark Totally Twisted includes the more macabre modules, namely Bungee Roulette, Chameleon, Coming Soon!, Flying Toilets, FrankenScreen, Message Mayhem, Mike's So-called Life, Mime Hunt, Mowin' Boris, Phlegm Boy, Shock Clocks, Toxic Swamp, and Voyeur.
- Modules with two asterisks (**) in the list above are from the Still in the Dark collection of 11 modules by Bob Loeffler.
Release history
- version 1.0 - 1989
- version 2.0 - 1992 - The first official release for Windows.
- version 3.0 - 1994
- version 3.2 - 1995
- version 4.0 - 1996
- version 5.0 - 2018
References
Further reading
- Fenton, Erfert. Art of Darkness. Peachpit Press, 1992.
External links
- After Dark X -- the official version for Mac OS X by Infinisys
- Aggressively Stupid: The Story Behind After Dark, By Tommy Thomas - 2007.02.09
- On Mighty Toaster Wings: More After Dark History, By Tommy Thomas - 2007.02.12
- How After Dark Came to Windows
- After Dark 5.0, Released by NeoTech Enterprises - January 18, 2018
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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