After Dark

Berkeley Systems was founded by Wes Boyd and Joan Blades and made software for blind users until After Dark took over the company in 1989. Screensavers already existed; they blanked the screen so the phosphor in the tube would not burn in. After Dark let its modules put on a show instead: rain, fish, a coffee maker, and from version 2.0 the winged toasters Jack Eastman had sketched after a late night in his kitchen. The Windows version came in 1991, followed by licensed packs with Star Trek, The Simpsons and Disney, plus Lunatic Fringe, a game you could play inside the screensaver until the boss walked past.

The toasters attracted lawyers. In 1993 Delrina sold a screensaver in which Opus from Bloom County shot them down, and lost in court; in 1994 Jefferson Airplane sued over an album cover with flying toasters, and lost, because the band had never registered the copyright. The market vanished when Windows and Mac OS shipped their own savers and flat panels stopped burning in. Berkeley Systems was sold in 1997 to CUC, Sierra's owner, and Boyd and Blades founded MoveOn the following year. The screensaver survived as a genre, ironically mostly in XScreenSaver.