After Dark (software)


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.
After the original, additional editions included More After Dark, Before Dark, and editions themed around licensed properties such as Star Trek, The Simpsons, Looney Tunes, Marvel, and Disney characters.
The program allowed for the development and use of third-party modules supplementary to the original program, and hundreds of such modules were created during the main period of its popularity.
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Flying Toasters

image:After Dark 3 CDROM.jpg|thumb|left|200px|An After Dark CD-ROM.
The most famous of the included screensaver modules is Flying Toasters, which featured 1940s-style chrome toasters sporting bird-like wings, flying across the screen with pieces of toast. Engineer Jack Eastman claims he thought of the display after seeing a toaster in a kitchen during a late-night programming session and imagining the addition of wings, although the winged toasters bear a strong resemblance to those on the cover of Jefferson Airplane’s 1973 album Thirty Seconds Over Winterland. 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 named Flying Toasters! added bagels and pastries, baby toasters, and more elaborate toaster animation. The Flying Toasters were one of the main 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, concerning a module of Delrina's screensaver Opus 'N Bill 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 record 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.
In late 2025 a version was recreated for MacOS by Greg Gant.

History

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, later created MoveOn.org. Ed Fries, co-developer of the popular Fish! screensaver, became vice president of game publishing at Microsoft.
The Bad Dog TV series, based on the After Dark module of the same name, was produced by CinéGroupe and Saban Entertainment for the Teletoon and Fox Family Channel networks that was first broadcast by Teletoon on March 1, 1999.
An official version of After Dark was released for Mac OS X running on PowerPC by Infinisys, Ltd. of Japan in May 2003. For Apple silicon and Intel Macs, remakes of three popular modules — "Flying Toasters", "Mowing Man" and "Boris" — are available as standalone screensavers.
Sierra released an After Dark: Flying Toaster video game for cellphones in 2006.
Sierra Entertainment was eventually acquired by Vivendi Games, which later merged with Activision to form Activision Blizzard, which was subsequently acquired by Microsoft.

''After Dark Games''

Sierra Attractions 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 ; Roof Rats ; Solitaire ; Toaster Run ; Zapper ; Hula Girl ; two word scramble games, Bad Dog 911 and Fish Shtick ; Foggy Boxes ; MooShu Tiles ; and Rodger Dodger.
J.C. Herz of The New York Times wrote that the "sheer simplicity" of these games helped make them as "engaging and addictive as the mega-selling 40-hour sagas with souped-up 3-D sound and state-of-the-art computer graphics". A review in Computer Gaming World stated that, "If nothing else, it makes for a good time-killer."

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

Licensed products