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Gold Medal Software 5
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Gold Medal Software - Volume 5 (Gold Medal) (1995).iso
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AFTERD
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1994-10-18
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AFTER DARK 3.0
review by
W. Macleod
After Dark is a full featured suite of screen savers for MS
Windows. Installation is quick and simple allowing you to select
the drive and directory of your choice. The install even shows you
the available space, before and after installation, of your
selectable drives. The program comes with a "Quick Reference Guide"
that gives you all the information you really need to setup and take
advantage of all its features, but also includes extensive on-line
help.
When the program is first started, it brings you to the Main
selection screen from which you can choose your setup selections.
Setup consists of four areas: General, Password, Advanced options
and Ecologic. General allows you to set the time of inactivity
before the saver becomes active, this can be set from 1 minute to
779 minutes. Other options include: the ability to mute the sounds
that are part of many of the savers; selection of whether the After
Dark icon will appear on the desktop or not; deter mining if mouse
movement will deactivate the saver. Enabling SystemIQ enhances
After Dark's sensitivity to your systems workload, including
monitoring com ports, to prevent it from activating at times when
you need all the processing time you can get. There is also a
setting to determine just how sensitive the SystemIQ should be. You
can also change the Hot Key combination used to invoke the saver
immediately and you can select hot and cold control corners for your
desktop. Moving the mouse cursor to a hot corner activated the
saver, moving it to a cold corner prevents the saver from activating
at all.
The Password section allows you to protect your system by
requiring a password once the saver is interrupted. The password
can be configured for one time usage or to be on at all times. You
can also configure it to use your network password or set it up to
require a password every time you launch MS Windows.
The Advanced Options area allows you to manipulate your screen
saver modules. If you add or edit some modules you can update your
list from here. You can reset all modules to their default
settings. You can select to have After Dark activate while you are
in a full screen DOS session. You can opt to have After Dark update
its module list each time it starts up, handy if you do a lot of
editing and/or creating of your own savers.
The Ecologic section is After Dark's power manager. If you have
one of the newer Energy Star monitors you can set it up to power off
your monitor after a saver has been active for a specified time. If
your monitor is not Energy Star compliant, this feature will simply
black your screen instead of powering it off.
The Main screen allows you to select, configure and test any of
the more than 30 included screen savers. If you already own After
Dark 1.0, or 2.0, Star Trek, The Screen Saver, Disney or other
Berkeley Systems savers, they will also be accessible from the main
control panel. There is also a "Randomizer" that allows you to
select multiple savers and play them in order or randomly. The
time each saver will run can also be set for each individual saver.
You can even select different modules from different versions of
After Dark or other BSI savers to pay in the same Randomizer!
A rather unique feature is called Multimodule. This allows you
to combine several modules into one display. The modules can be
configured to run side by side or to overlap each other and the
specific area and size that each module will occupy can be set.
After you have setup a multimodule that you like you can save it to
the multimodule folder and use it anytime you desire. After Dark
comes with several pre-created multimodules that you can use or
delete. Some of the modules you can create can be very stunning or
very bizarre.
After Dark comes with more than 30 savers. It includes all the
savers from version 2.0 and 15 new ones. Savers run from the
classic Flying Toasters to Bad Dog which presents a mischievous
looking pup who scampers about your desktop, digging holes, removing
chips, chewing on wires, answering natures call and all those other
things puppies do to endear themselves to us. The program is large,
occupying better than 5 MB, but is worth the space if you value a
screen saver for more than just its functional pu rpose. If you are
like me you have numerous shareware and freeware savers, as well the
standard Windows savers, cluttering up your system. With After
Dark, I will be removing all of those other savers and the space
will probably be nearly equal. This is a fun product and I highly
recommend it!
Requires 386 or better running Windows 3.1 Enhanced mode, VGA
display, 4MB RAM and 5MB free Hard Drive space. Soundblaster or
compatible sound card is recommended.
Berkeley Systems
2095 Rose Street
Berkeley, CA 94709
(510) 540-5535