After Dark: Flying Toasters and Starry Night

Рет қаралды 7,175

Күн бұрын

Who remembers After Dark? This collection of screen savers was a must have if you were looking for not so ordinary screen savers!
▬▬▬▬ Support Bits und Bolts ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
Patreon:🔸 / bitsundbolts
Bitcoin: bc1q2dvf9flf78lam33qjj9w9xgvfxdgre7g9x3rmw
Twitter/X: / bitsundbolts
Facebook: / bitsundbolts
▬▬▬▬ PCBWay ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
Signup with PCBWay: 🔸pcbway.com/g/lF253I
PCBWay provides full feature custom PCB prototyping services, 3D printing, and much more. Check them out using my referral link above and get a 5 USD welcome bonus when you sign up as a new customer!
30-PIN SIMM with EDO-2-FPM Mod (direct link):
🔸www.pcbway.com/project/sharep...
My contribution to the Community Project Space at PCBWay:
🔸www.pcbway.com/project/member...
▬▬▬▬ Timestamps ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
00:00 Intro
00:51 Hardware
02:13 Install MS-DOS
03:52 Install Windows 3.1
04:27 Sound Blaster 2.0 Drivers
05:01 Install After Dark
06:34 First Look
07:01 Showcase Screen Savers
09:10 Success of After Dark: Flying Toasters
10:36 Starry Night

Пікірлер: 131

@RKelleyCook 4 ай бұрын

After Dark had to be one of the most pirated utilities of the 1990s. Everyone had a copy, but most people had no idea it was something you were supposed to buy and just made a copy for their friends. Company could have made >$50m if they would have priced it correctly (~$5).

@hyoenmadan 4 ай бұрын

"Company could have made >$50m if they would have priced it correctly (~$5)." Well, this software came from Macintosh world. Even back then, it was priced properly to Apple standards :-P. Now seriously... I don't remember any boxed software priced not less than $30 bucks. Even shovelware was $20 bucks if you take in count the cost of the magazine it came from. The $5 meme has been always that, a meme.

@KevinFields777 4 ай бұрын

I cannot overstate just how popular After Dark was. In 1993 I took a tour of the Eli Lilly & Co headquarters and research operations in Indianapolis, IN, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. There wasn't a single Macintosh or Windows system that didn't have it running.

@lorensims4846 4 ай бұрын

After Dark was the "must have" program back in the day. I was just wondering what ever became of After Dark just last week.

@marcelofrau8818 4 ай бұрын

When I was a kid I remember spending hours of hours just looking around and trying and seeing the screensavers.. My father bought the disney edition which contained even more incredible screensavers, it was amazing.

@compmanio36 3 ай бұрын

I remember Starry Night being the default screensaver on all the Macs at the school district my grandmother worked at when I was a kid. I'd go with her when she worked overnight and wander around the school, watching the screensaver slowly fill in the city backdrop. Not another person in the school. Everything was dark. It was a mood to be sure.

@Google_Is_Evil 4 ай бұрын

Please wait, loading fish.

@garhpd 3 ай бұрын

I used to love watching After Dark on my mom's Compaq 386! So glad to see it again after all these years.

@bennetfox 4 ай бұрын

I had my copy of AfterDark and my preferred screensaver will always be the flying toasters!!!

@cpu_duke 4 ай бұрын

Thanks for this video bringing back memories of those screen saver days! After dark was super nice. I liked the smirky eyes in the dark 👀

@Fallen608 4 ай бұрын

Always a comfy video for us that grew up in the 90s. Keep it up

@TheRenalicious 3 ай бұрын

I'm currently running the Starry Night screen saver on my PC, and it still brings back memories of the early 90's every time I see it, even if it's MUCH more dense on a 1440p display. I wish there was complete collection of classic after dark screen savers for modern windows like there is for Linux.

@AdamChristensen 4 ай бұрын

I love After Dark. When I found a boxed copy on 5.25" disks in a thrift store that I would NEVER have guessed I would find any retro items, I was ecstatic! 😍

@bitsundbolts 4 ай бұрын

That's awesome!

@Cliffsrepaircorner 4 ай бұрын

Absolutely love this program and the fun extra modules both silly and charming

@JamesPotts 4 ай бұрын

I loved After Dark, and the later Simpsons and Star Trek versions.

@interfaceprime2171 4 ай бұрын

This has brough back so many fond memories for me! Thanks for a blast from the past!!! The fish tank was always my favorite :)

@bitsundbolts 4 ай бұрын

You're welcome! Glad you enjoyed that!

@toseltreps1101 4 ай бұрын

Takes me back to better times... ❤

@squeeeb 4 ай бұрын

I actually never saw Starry Night back in the day so seeing it here with the music you added was really nice.

@phipli 4 ай бұрын

On the Mac versions at least, and I assume Windows, Starry Night was baked in, so even if someone deleted all the modules (plugins) it still worked. Because of that it defaulted to it if there were any issues, such as a module needing more RAM than was available or a higher bit-depth.

@r66fplaysgames 4 ай бұрын

@@phipliI remember that! Some of the Mac PC's in the public school I went to, in the mid-90's, that had After Dark installed on them would usually be showing the Starry Night screensaver with a scrolling error message at the top of the screen. It seemed to always be an issue with the RAM.

@Taorakis 4 ай бұрын

I recently reinstalled the starfield screensaver on my W10 system for nostalgia purposes.

@ericasbill4240 Күн бұрын

When it came out I would change the themes depending on the games I would play. Starry night and space quest was a fun one.

@Choralone422 4 ай бұрын

I had a copy of After Dark version 2 or 3 which I used with Windows 3.1 back in the day. It was a really neat program to have running when the computer was running in "family mode" in Windows. However, after Windows 95 was released the the screen savers that it included along with the extra ones you got in the Windows 95 Plus pack were "good enough" for me to stop using After Dark. Even so, I still love to see Starry Night!

@pistonsettransistors 4 ай бұрын

Thank you ! It reminds me moments spents with my Friends, tinkering PC when I was student.

@DonaldDucksRevenge 3 ай бұрын

You're wonderful for uploading this

@Vile-Flesh 3 ай бұрын

Very nice. We never had After Dark but I remember seeing or hearing something about it in the '90s. I'll never forget seeing the windows starfield screensaver for the first time on our family Pionex 486sx25, I thought it was amazing and it fit well because father was really into astronomy as a hobby. Thank you for letting me revisit that memory again.

@matthewpower3062 4 ай бұрын

Oh I remember this, when we used to re-install our OS as often as my son reboots his pc nowadays.

@Zorix83 4 ай бұрын

The Macintosh computers at school would run After Dark. I didn't know there was a Windows version until much later. But I still remember it from school.

@charonunderground8596 4 ай бұрын

As early as 1985, the Amiga 1000 offered a windowed multitasking operating system called AmigaOS with a graphical Workbench interface. Long before Microsoft offered something similar.

@looks-suspicious 4 ай бұрын

Microsoft Windows 1.0 came out in 1985 as well. The Apple Macintosh launched in 1984. The Xerox Alto, the grandfather of all graphical operating systems, was conceived a full decade before that. How is any of this relevant to After Dark?

@RShanjihad 4 ай бұрын

I didnt have the screen saver but back in 2007/2008 I stumbled upon a copy of After Dark games on my Dad's windows XP machine and the rest was history

@SuperVirus1978 4 ай бұрын

I loved AD back in the days. AD 4.0 still works to some degree on current systems.

@bitsundbolts 4 ай бұрын

Wow, I didn't know there are so many versions!

@stamasd8500 4 ай бұрын

In the early 2000s I found a Macintosh (I think it was a LC) that came with AfterDark preinstalled; moreover, the default screen saver set in it was a custom module featuring the dancing bear of the Grateful Dead. The previous owner must have been a fan of the band. :) Sadly I don't have that machine anymore, but I'm pretty sure I have archived somewhere the program and its custom module. It was pretty fun to watch.

@Ale.K7 4 ай бұрын

I didn't have After Dark back in the day, and even when I saw the Flying Toasters somewhere in the '90s (TV, I suppose) I didn't know where they were fom until much later... But it still makes me nostalgic for some reason :-)

@NaoPb 3 ай бұрын

I did not own these back then. The first I heard of it was in that "I'm the computer man" video set to the music of Scat Man John's "I'm a scatman". I think I later saw videos of it on LGR's channel and I thought it was a really cool program. And have been downloading versions to get it to work on all of my (old and new) computers.

@nicholassmith7730 4 ай бұрын

This brings back memories but my screen saver of choice was Johnny Castaway.

@timhartherz5652 3 ай бұрын

Ah yes, After dark & Icon-Hear-It, good times.

@stevencarlson5422 4 ай бұрын

Loved after dark still wish I could have this on my modern pc

@frankgroening9139 4 ай бұрын

amazing memories with AD in my 386 back in the 90s. Greetings from Argentina!

@bitsundbolts 4 ай бұрын

Great that you remember this time!

@mdrumt 4 ай бұрын

We had After Dark on a Mac Colour classic my uncle gifted us. I loved playing around with it, starry night, the planet generator, rain, and stars were my favourites.

@DefenderOfBoston-yo2tl 4 ай бұрын

Looks like I missed out on quite a bit there back in the day. I had heard of it and had actually seen the aquarium and the flying toasters, but neither really tickled my fancy. In that regard, I was quite pragmatic and perfectly happy with starfield simulation. Good burn-in protection and Star Trek vibes to boot! I must admit that I would certainly have liked and used a few of the showcased ones though.

@harukaapl 4 ай бұрын

I Remember them also Mopy Fish

@BVN-TEXAS 4 ай бұрын

I feel old now. I remember as a teenager getting the flying toasters installed. It was icnonic of the 90s.

@NoReverse77 4 ай бұрын

I want the bouncing balls screensaver. I would sit and watch that.

@tony359 4 ай бұрын

So primitive, so amazing! It was when computers were impressing people with very little - which was quite a lot back then of course! I'm surprised of the bad installation process and the labeless floppy though!

@bitsundbolts 4 ай бұрын

Yeah, I am not sure if this is due to cost cutting, or this is just a cheap pirated copy.

@looks-suspicious 4 ай бұрын

@@bitsundbolts It must be pirated. The printed cover is full of awful grammar and spelling mistakes: Verschiednene, Shoner, BMP´s, Win´95, ...

@lemagreengreen 4 ай бұрын

After Dark was fun, I remember it being included on CD shovelware compilations for years to come... I think I got it with a Creative CD-ROM drive a few years after its release. I liked Johnny Castaway a lot too, simpler times...

@herauthon 4 ай бұрын

although less retro.. there was a nice fishbowl screen for windows.. it was funny for it was interactive.. poking the fish..

@mercle80 4 ай бұрын

I had many versions of this. Only have the original loony toons one still. I had the simpsons and star trek also.

@john_ace 4 ай бұрын

I remember that in 2000 when i was working 1st level support, we had a computer that was always crashing after 1-2 seconds when the mouse was not moving. It turned out it was a bad screensaver from a "Computer Bild" CD the user had installed and set the time to the lowest value. It instantly triggering the screensaver when the mouse was not moving for the shortest time, even in the failsafe mode. Of course the user insisted that someone else had possibly installed the screensaver with his login. That excuse was actually not that bad since the user name and password were written with red permanent marker on the monitor bezel.

@bitsundbolts 4 ай бұрын

Wow, that is a weird issue and problem to debug! Good for you that you figured it out!

@Allswell510 4 ай бұрын

Thank you, now I remembered I need to get a copy of after dark for my raspberry pi micro macintosh 😅

@bitsundbolts 4 ай бұрын

Haha, nice!

@Roadkill7878 4 ай бұрын

It took me flipping ages to work out what was wrong with CF cards not working and it’s was Phils Computer lab that I finally got the answer regarding FDISK /MBR. Great you included that in this video 👍🏻

@bitsundbolts 4 ай бұрын

That CF card issue was indeed a bit weird and I was confused initially. That is why I included it in the video. I never had this 'GRUB' error with SD cards. However, it is really difficult to find low capacity SD cards these days.

@no0ne. 4 ай бұрын

I think there was a Linux installtion on the card before. And fdisk only writes MBRs if there are none, but don't overwrite existing ones. Hence this was the last remaining code of the GRUB bootloader.

@NielsHeusinkveld 4 ай бұрын

Briefly I thought 'After Dark' would be a strange continuation of the Tomb Raider series featuring Lara Croft..

@bitsundbolts 4 ай бұрын

Haha. That would be difficult to bridge the story from a toaster to a tomb...

@RamiKattan 4 ай бұрын

I think there was a naughty dog screen saver, with a dog messing up your windows 3.1 desktop, chewing on icons, digging into the computer, I used to love that one. Maybe a newer version of after dark

@bitsundbolts 4 ай бұрын

YES! You are right! I remember that one as well.

@squeeeb 4 ай бұрын

That is awesome lol!

@phipli 4 ай бұрын

It was called "Bad Dog"

@KeefJudge 4 ай бұрын

I think it was the aquarium one I remember seeing on PCs at the time. It could be argued that quite a few of the ones you showed near the end of the vid aren't gonna save anyone's screen cos they have static elements on screen.

@bitsundbolts 4 ай бұрын

Yeah, better to use one that changes the entire screen.

@AladimBR 4 ай бұрын

There were variants… I liked Simpsons and Start Trek ones

@VladoT 4 ай бұрын

In my country there was no legal way of obtaining software back then so we relied on downloads from BBS systems abroad. Most of the downloads were of course pirated stuff but we could have any software you like to try 😊

@bitsundbolts 4 ай бұрын

At the time of floppy disks, copies were passed around easily. I remember the beige/brown plastic storage boxes with floppies and their hand written labels :) Sooo many of them.

@joetheman74 4 ай бұрын

Afterdark came in a full size box with manual and catalogs for other products. That thing you got there almost certainly was a bootleg pirated copy.

@bitsundbolts 4 ай бұрын

Probably. The floppy didn't even have a label on it.

@alien_ghost 4 ай бұрын

I was wondering when you'll show Starry Night. I spent many times watching this on my old Mac.

@bitsundbolts 4 ай бұрын

Yeah, I kept it for last. I thought it was the perfect scene to finish the video.

@geofftnz 4 ай бұрын

Does anyone remember Lunatic Fringe? A little asteroids-like game built as an AfterDark module on the Mac (System 7/8?).

@Constantin314 4 ай бұрын

ha ha, never knew this program, very nice and interesting. nice you did a video about it

@bitsundbolts 4 ай бұрын

You're welcome ;)

@gelousi 4 ай бұрын

After dark is my first memory of a pc I had a commodore 486 dx2 / 66, I’ve never found another similar still on the lookout. Also street rod 2 good times😊

@sandmanxo 4 ай бұрын

Looks like After Dark came out for Windows in 1992, you had said around 1990 which is true for the Mac version it seems. I was a bit thrown off by that since Windows 3.1 came out in 1992. In any case, I had this on my 386dx40 in 1993. I think a friend of mine had downloaded it and didn't know it was commercial software until years later. I eventually lost it in either a Windows reload or a motherboard upgrade and forgot about it for years, still crazy to think it was sold for $50.

@bitsundbolts 4 ай бұрын

Yeah, I also read conflicting information about After Dark. I've seen original release dates for Macintosh in 1989 a bit later. Maybe there was a DOS version that was released before the Windows 3.1 release. But you are correct that Windows 3.1 was released in 1992.

@cbmeeks 4 ай бұрын

I first saw After Dark on the Macs at work. I enjoyed it but wasn't terribly impressed. I had an Amiga at home. 😀

@InsaneWayne355 4 ай бұрын

I never understood the hype over After Dark. For me, the most interesting screensaver by far was Johnny Castaway.

@lexluthermiester 2 ай бұрын

Definitely over-hyped! However, they were still, interesting, fun to watch and very cool. Worth $50? No. $15? Yeah, and that's what I paid.

@pazsion 4 ай бұрын

after using the alternative products doong the same things... seeing the originals on maxed and tweaked ram... very smooth and nothing like the wannabes and yea i hated when a screensaver would crash... id be building models in 3d cas that took days or months to render, walk away to get coffee... and its bsod... dig a bit and its crashed because of memory issues or something.

@FroggyTWrite 4 ай бұрын

does anyone know a way to get these old screensavers working on windows 10 / 11 ?

@thomasandrews9355 4 ай бұрын

You should do a follow up on after dark games, I have a more vivid memory of that collection as it came with my first prebuilt from tv…sadly that system is long gone. Had 32mb of ram lol remember installing NT on it and feeling so accomplished until I found it didn’t have active desktop…wow memories 😊

@bitsundbolts 4 ай бұрын

I've read about the games while looking for more info. Sounds like those games could be fun to check.

@Aeduo 4 ай бұрын

I wonder, how early of a version of windows could xscreensavers work on.

@Jackpkmn 4 ай бұрын

AfterDark screensavers were a treat to watch. But not great screensavers. I've seen more than one classic black and white macintosh with starry night burned into the screen.

@bitsundbolts 4 ай бұрын

Some of those screen savers can really back-stab you!

@BrianMartin2007 9 күн бұрын

Why aren’t you using Partition Magic 8.04?

@davide.ercolano 4 ай бұрын

One of the most anxious things in my life: format C: Anyway, I used to know some of them, but I never had the After Dark floppy, some were included in windows 98 screensavers?

@SimonSideburns 4 ай бұрын

I can't remember the name but wasn't there another compilation of screensavers from another company. I recall more than one choice, but the name escapes me right now. I tried to look it up but drew a blank. Anyone else know.

@NotColaTai 4 ай бұрын

Toaster

@Necr0BR 4 ай бұрын

is there any way to make it work on modern systems?

@bitsundbolts 4 ай бұрын

This is 16-bit software. I don't think you can run it anymore. However, there are websites that emulate After Dark. As someone suggested, maybe there is a screensaver that is just a webview that can load a website. Then you could get the feeling of having After Dark running on a modern system.

@Jack7277 4 ай бұрын

32mb ram on a 386 is absolute overkill ))

@bitsundbolts 4 ай бұрын

Oh yes, absolutely.

@phipli 4 ай бұрын

Just wondering, but is there any chance that that is a non-licenced AfterDark disk? No label, orange disk, basic installer?

@bitsundbolts 4 ай бұрын

Could be. I have no idea what version this is. I bought this from a book store in Germany which probably had it in a corner for a few decades. The application was also in English. I am not sure if it would have been German if Windows were in German, but I highly doubt it.

@user-pf9dr2bt6z 4 ай бұрын

oh What is the model of that motherboard? it looks very nice and compact

@bitsundbolts 4 ай бұрын

SOYO 019L1

@user-pf9dr2bt6z 4 ай бұрын

@@bitsundbolts TY very much, off to ebay now :)

@MarcoGPUtuber 4 ай бұрын

3:14 Hopefully you filled out your registration card. :P

@bitsundbolts 4 ай бұрын

😂. I wonder if they would update me and let me know about product improvements.

@awilliams1701 4 ай бұрын

nope. my attitude was always "Screen savers are stupid". lol I've never actually used one. ever. lol I always turned them off and now they aren't really a thing anymore.

@bitsundbolts 4 ай бұрын

Wasn't that also one thing to "improve performance" of your system? Including removing the wallpaper and disabling all the windows sounds...

@awilliams1701 4 ай бұрын

@@bitsundbolts nah it was just because it was "stupid". lol Wallpaper? Sure thing, but no screensavers. lol

@GigAHerZ64 4 ай бұрын

You should have installed graphics drivers too and run windows in 256 colors... You never really know now, what all of it really looked like...

@bitsundbolts 4 ай бұрын

To me, this looked normal.... Did I make a mistake and mess up by not installing a graphics card driver?

@GigAHerZ64 4 ай бұрын

@@bitsundbolts potentially, not necessarily. Maybe after dark has some higher color graphics that now got "downscaled" to 16 colors.

@SidneyCritic 4 ай бұрын

Some of those screen savers don't look like they are going to save your screen - lol -.

@bitsundbolts 4 ай бұрын

You could be right :)

@andreabc1469 4 ай бұрын

128 MB - Ms DOS 6.22 plus Win 3.11 and an Office = not enough space

@bitsundbolts 4 ай бұрын

120 MB HDD space sounds ridiculous by todays standards. However, I think you should be comfortable with MS-DOS, Win 3.1 and office basics like Word and Excel with at least half of the drive still empty for other files and applications.

@andreabc1469 4 ай бұрын

@@bitsundbolts my old HDD had 160Mb, that wasn't enough

@mykolapliashechnykov8701 4 ай бұрын

More than enough. My 210 Mb Conner hard drive in 1994 had had 3 partitions. 1st, with DOS 6.22, Windows 3.11 and full Office (Excel 5 + Word 6 + Access 2 + Equation), was about 120 megabytes and still had ~20-40 Mb free.

@andreabc1469 4 ай бұрын

@@mykolapliashechnykov8701 ah ok, had full Office 97 on my Conner HDD