Revisit Flying Toasters from the After Dark Screen Saver via Web
Do you remember when your Macintosh screen saver was filled with flying toasters, aquarium fish, and warp speed ahead? If so, you might be recollecting the glorious fun of the After Dark Screen Saver, which graced the Macintosh in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, way back when the Macintosh platform and entire ecosystem was full of whimsy and didn’t take itself too seriously.
While the 1990’s are long over, you can enjoy the artwork and experience of the classic 30 year old screensaver thanks to an effort to recreate the After Dark Screen Saver experience directly within a web browser.
Unfortunately you won’t be able to use it as a modern screen saver (well, unless you use WebViewScreenSaver to use the website as a screen saver but that’s quite a workaround), but you’ll at least be able to relive some of the old memories.
The After Dark Aquarium:
The famous After Dark Flying Toasters:
While this is just on the web, if you’re on a much older version of Mac OS X you can actually still run a ported version of the After Dark screen saver, available here from when we covered it way back in 2007(!) – and no, it does not work in MacOS Monterey or Big Sur, we tried. The source is available via WayBackMachine though, so perhaps some enterprising geek will modernize After Dark screensaver?
Anyway, enjoy some more retro Macintosh fun if you’re into that sort of thing, though After Dark was not confined to classic Mac OS and did later make an appearance on Windows PC’s too.
You can get this version of Flying Toasters and it runs on Monterey!
https://www.screensaversplanet.com/screensavers/after-dark-flying-toasters-1153/download
There’s also Starry Night screen saver rebuild in JS
https://www.logan-cooper.com/starry-night/
And another version of Flying toasters in JS
https://www.masswerk.at/flyer/
The 90’s had horrible music that did not age well (unlike the 80’s) and exceptionally bad style, but boy were they better than later time periods
Personally I miss the “Totally Twisted” AfterDark series, that was hilarious and back when computers were fun
Nice article.
BTW.
Don’t meddle with the keyboard commands dear osxDaily.
I just want to command+click to open the linked page in a new tab instead of seeing a stupid ad.
Can you elaborate on your comment? I use command+click for opening links in new windows all the time as well
Used to like the Hula Twins screen save too
There is a version of the After Dark screen saver made by a Japanese Company called Infinisys, they just updated it to version 1.1, it runs in Big Sur and is available for sale at a very small price if you are really a fan.
https://en.infinisys.co.jp/download/index.shtml
Eduardo, this is awesome thanks for sharing!
Jefferson Airplane – sued over this – as it looked and everyone knew it was a copy of the flying toasters artwork for the 30 Seconds over Winterland Album – they lost the case mainly because JA hadnt copyrighted the artwork – and the developer denied all knowledge of ever seeing it ( highly unlikely at the time)