After Dark

After Dark brought a rather different idea of entertainment to the desktop: instead of asking the computer to work harder, why not let it sit there and look interesting? The software became famous for its collection of screen savers, turning an otherwise boring monitor into everything from animated curiosities to genuinely strange visual displays. Its appeal was partly practical, since screen savers originally helped protect CRT displays, but After Dark understood that people also enjoyed having something amusing happen when they stepped away. The software became closely associated with the early 1990s Macintosh and Windows computing culture, when a screen saver could be a tiny piece of personality. It is difficult to call it essential software, but it was certainly more entertaining than staring at a blank screen and wondering whether the computer had fallen asleep.