Not too many years ago, a little software company called Berkeley Systems came out with a cute program called After Dark that performs one simple function: It darkens a monitor after a given time to keep the phosphor from “burning in” on your screen.
At the time, another program called Pyro was the favorite screen saver with its continuous fireworks display. In addition, many shareware and public-domain programs were available to most users. Did the world really need another screen saver, especially one that retailed for $50?
Apparently so because After Dark not only has become a big seller, but one of the most pirated software packages in the Macintosh world. That is a sign of greatness.
In fact, it has developed into a huge cult hit because, unlike Pyro and various shareware screen savers were in those days, After Dark actually is a number of screen savers. Such modules as Fish!, Warp and Flying Toasters are regularly viewed in homes and offices around the globe.
Version 2.0 came along and gave users sounds in addition to the cool screen savers. Now the fish gurgle, the lightening has accompanying thunder and the clock module ticks.
If that wasn’t enough, Berkeley Systems last year came out with More After Dark (or MAD), which ranges from the useful to the ridiculous. On one fringe, the Virex-D module scans your computer for software viruses while the screen rests. On the ridiculous end is a video game called Lunatic Fringe. Only Berkeley Systems would think of adding a video game to a screen saver.
My favorite module still is the Flying Toasters because I figure whoever came up with such a whacky idea must have been under the influence of some kind of mind-altering hallucinogen. Berkeley Systems even markets a line of clothing around the Flying Toasters, so I proudly purchased a Flying Toaster earlier this year at Macworld Expo in San Francisco.
Curmudgeons still argue that civilization as we know it would survive without After Dark, but these folks generally consider spreadsheets a recreational sport and for fun they sit in a dark room and brood about the political ramifications of Microsoft boss Bill Gates’ bathing habits.
These stodgy types aside, the Macintosh is designed to be fun and After Dark adds to the mystique.
So the world may be ready for After Dark, but is it ready for a book about After Dark? Author Erfert Fenton thought so — or didn’t care — and wrote Art of Darkness: The After Dark Companion. At 128 pages, it’s exactly 100 pages longer than Berkeley Systems manual that accompanies After Dark and it includes a lot less valuable information, as we’ll see.
When I opened the package from Peachpit Press and glimpsed Art of Darkness, I actually chortled. Even guffawed. How could anybody resist reading a book with that title about a screen saver? It did bring back not-so-fond memories of Advanced Placement English class my senior year in high school. I remember trudging through Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and recall searching for Cliff’s Notes afterward to find out what the heck it was about. Even Francis Ford Coppolla’s Academy Award-winning movie Apocalypse Now — loosely based on Conrad’s 1899 novel — was mighty dark and disturbing.
Don’t worry. Fenton’s After Dark book bears no resemblance. In fact, it is quite the opposite. Fenton is a witty writer whose humor meets and exceeds Guy Kawasaki’s prose. Software companies who want their manuals read should call Fenton.
Of course, who could write a book about a screen saver with a straight face? Not Fenton. An example (explaining the origins of the Flying Toasters):
“It was a dark and stormy night. Well, chances are it wasn’t stormy, since California was in the middle of a terrible drought at the time. But it was dark for sure. A lonely soul named Jack Eastman paced restlessly through his house. Actually, he wasn’t all that lonely; he had a wife. But she was working the night shift and he was indeed pacing around that night, trying to come up with an idea for a screen saver for the second version of After Dark. His pacing took him into the kitchen and his eyes roamed across appliances large and small. Suddenly an idea popped into his head: ‘Flying toasters!’ He exclaimed. ... And the rest is history. Jack Eastman will forever be known, at least in some circles, as the Father of Flying Toasters.”
Wow, this book is even educational. Now I know the Flying Toasters weren’t drug-induced.
Art of Darkness explains all of the modules that come with After Dark 2.0 and More After Dark, as well as some of the most popular shareware modules and a disk of nine new modules that exclusively accompany the book (including Eastman’s first attempt at Flying Toasters). Author Fenton, who obviously has too much time on his hands, also gives us great tips on how to use MultiModule to make really hip screen savers that Berkeley Systems never considered (of course, any company that could come up with Flying Toasters can’t be ruled out of considering anything).
What the book completely ignores, unfortunately (and the AD manual covers) is programming instructions. You see, anybody with the Think C programming language can write their own modules. This would actually have made Art of Darkness useful.
Art of Darkness is available from Peachpit Press. While it isn’t likely to be a best seller among those who actually understand Conrad’s novels, anybody who wants to be hip will have it on their bookshelves. This is the perfect Christmas stocking stuffer.
Reprinted from The Finder, monthly newsletter of the Mid-Columbia Macintosh Users Group. Non-profit computer users groups have permission to reprint this article providing the author and the Mid-Columbia Macintosh Users Group in Tri-Cities, Wash., are fully credited and a copy of the newsletter in which the article appears is sent to:
