
Aggressively Stupid: The Story Behind After Dark (2007) - ecliptik
https://lowendmac.com/2007/aggressively-stupid-the-story-behind-after-dark/
======
bitwize
This program was so popular, references to it were made on _Beverly Hills,
90210_. When the "Peach Pit After Dark" nightclub opened, the wordmark above
the nightclub entrance was the same as that of the screen saver After Dark.
There was also a flying toaster on the door, and some of the disco lights had
flying toaster stencil masks in front of them, projecting toasters onto the
dancefloor.

It was a very rare instance of a real-world computer culture reference
appearing in something as aggressively pop culture as 90210.

------
dang
A thread from 2017:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14900647](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14900647)

2014:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7702105](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7702105)

A bit from 2010:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1338175](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1338175)

(These links are for the curious. Reposts are ok after a year or so:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html))

------
mistersquid
I have my own fond memories of After Dark, especially the Satori module. The
colored whorls Satori produced were so aesthetically pleasing, and I do think
part of its durability would be the “organic” quality of the render, a quality
probably partly due to the excellence of After Dark’s randomization.

Jack Eastman attributes quite a bit of After Dark’s success among the
competition due to the team’s striving for high quality randomness:

> The other thing we were careful to do was not to put the toasters on a track
> and repeat the show. Random numbers were always important from that point
> on. I had done Monte Carlo simulations in my physics work and knew how to
> produce random numbers in various distributions. I think that was an
> important idea – we had these little movies, but you couldn’t predict them.

> Competitors didn’t have that insight. With After Dark you could just zone
> out and watch for a long time. Plus it was really a screen saver – it
> wouldn’t do to have images sitting in one place or in repeating patterns.
> [0]

[0] [https://lowendmac.com/2007/aggressively-stupid-the-story-
beh...](https://lowendmac.com/2007/aggressively-stupid-the-story-behind-after-
dark/)

~~~
zweep
Example of even how the most absurd successes often have nailed the important
details really well.

------
mwcampbell
I didn't realize that implementing a screen saver for Mac back then required
such low-level hacking. I guess that shouldn't be surprising, if the OS didn't
have built-in support for screen savers.

The interview briefly mentions that the same company, Berkeley Systems,
developed a screen magnifier for people with low vision. They also developed a
screen reader, OutSpoken [1], for blind people. Utilities like those also
required low-level hacking.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OutSpoken](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OutSpoken)

------
vhold
Run a mac emulator to save your screen in your browser:
[https://archive.org/details/AfterDark2](https://archive.org/details/AfterDark2)

------
emcrazyone
another screen saver was Johnny Castaway. Was an IT guy at a company in the
late 90s and this screen saver was on many workstations where I worked. Was
always intriguing to see what Johnny would be into next...

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r10WuRo7c50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r10WuRo7c50)

~~~
mattl
Special dates would do certain things. Occasionally he’d leave the island.

------
Ididntdothis
I miss Lunatic Fringe. Simple enough to be learned quickly but interesting
enough to not get bored.

~~~
randomfool
Was reminded of this game while reading the article but was racking my brain
to remember the name. Thanks for mentioning it, fond memories.

------
DrTung
Every time I opened a network share or similar "slow" device on Windows XP's
File Explorer (alas not in Windows 7 or 10) I'm reminded of After Dark, since
that sweeping flashlight (that goes left/right) is more or less exactly copied
from Disney Mickey Mouse something/screensaver which was a clone of After
Dark.

------
thrower123
Screen savers were such a fun thing, two decades ago. It feels like all of the
fun has been crushed out of computing these days.

Why so serious?

~~~
spicymaki
I am starting think it is the money that strips all of the fun out of it. Most
software developers are not developing for fun these days. They are
interchangeable cogs developing CRUD for soulless corporations whilst praying
not to be rifed in the next culling. It is hard to produce art in that
environment.

------
billfruit
Not exactly the same thing, but 'Wallpaper Engine' is very highly rated on
Steam for its ability to create highly customized 2d/3d live wallpapers for
Windows PC's.

------
DonHopkins
Another mesmerizing screen saver is Electric Sheep, which just keeps getting
better and better over time, as it evolves in response to user's feedback:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17861723](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17861723)

Electric Sheep is generative crowdsourced evolutionary art that enables
viewers to vote for their favorite "sheep" animations to send them off to the
pasture to breed with other user's favorites with genetic cross-over and
mutation.

So it just gets better and better, in response to what people actually enjoy!

[https://electricsheep.org/#/about](https://electricsheep.org/#/about)

[http://scottdraves.com/sheep.html](http://scottdraves.com/sheep.html)

[http://scottdraves.com/flame.html](http://scottdraves.com/flame.html)

[http://flam3.com/](http://flam3.com/)

[https://web.archive.org/web/20050425102606/http://flam3.com/...](https://web.archive.org/web/20050425102606/http://flam3.com/flame.pdf)

Once I fell asleep while watching Star Trek Deep Space 9 on Netflix, and then
half woke up after the Electric Sheep screen saver has kicked back in but I
didn't realize it, so my brain struggled for several minutes trying to make
sense of the never-ending wormhole sequence that I though was an out-of-
control shuttlecraft lost in space!

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15668253](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15668253)

I have spent so many hours staring at Electric Sheep, thinking and wondering
about how it works, that I finally looked it up, and found the papers about
it!

It took less time to read the papers than it took to stare at the screen all
day tripping out and wondering, but I like to do both.

The Flame Algorithm

Flames are algorithmically generated images and animations. The software was
originally written in 1992 and released as open source, aka free software.
Over the years it has been greatly expanded, and is now widely used to create
art and special effects. The shape and color of each image is specified by a
long string of numbers - a genetic code of sorts.

[http://flam3.com/](http://flam3.com/)

The Fractal Flame Algorithm

[https://web.archive.org/web/20050425102606/http://flam3.com/...](https://web.archive.org/web/20050425102606/http://flam3.com/flame.pdf)

Evolution and Collective Intelligence of the Electric Sheep

[http://draves.org/aoae07/draves-aoae07.pdf](http://draves.org/aoae07/draves-
aoae07.pdf)

The Electric Sheep and their Dreams in High Fidelity

[http://draves.org/npar06/npar06draves.pdf](http://draves.org/npar06/npar06draves.pdf)

infinite evolving crowdsourced artwork

[https://github.com/scottdraves/electricsheep](https://github.com/scottdraves/electricsheep)

Copyright Spotworks LLC GPL2 Licensed see

[https://github.com/scottdraves/electricsheep/blob/master/cli...](https://github.com/scottdraves/electricsheep/blob/master/client_generic/COPYING)

2015.05 moved from code.google.com repo 2011.01.30 based on revision 1546 on
sf.net

The Electric Sheep is a cyborg mind. It harnesses the collective intelligence
of 450,000 computers and people to create abstract art with mathematics and
Darwinian evolution. The result is seamless, organic, and infinite. See also
[http://electricsheep.org](http://electricsheep.org) and
[http://scottdraves.com](http://scottdraves.com) .

The rendering engine is a separate project at
[https://github.com/scottdraves/flam3](https://github.com/scottdraves/flam3)

------
smabie
I had this screen saver when I was 12 maybe (15 years ago) in which these two
armies would fight each other forever. Like infantry and tanks and helicopters
would come out on each side and blow each other up. I’ve been trying to find
it for a long time, does anyone know what it is? It ran on WinXP.

------
pmarreck
For *nix screensaver fans feeling nostalgic, there's an XScreensaver version
for iOS, FYI

~~~
efreak
XScreensaver is also available for Android, and likely for windows/Mac as
well.

------
dundercoder
Does an After Dark clone exist for the modern Mac?

~~~
Cenk
Yes:
[http://en.infinisys.co.jp/product/flyingtoasters/index.shtml](http://en.infinisys.co.jp/product/flyingtoasters/index.shtml)

It works fine on High Sierra but probably won’t on Catalina, you can download
the trial version and give it a spin though.

