You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
Because we started using LCDs and they don't need "saved" like CRTs did.
Guessing this without looking it up: as we switched over to more energy efficient, smaller monitors with faster startup times it became less of a necessity to keep the screen turned on constantly and generally it was recognized that turning the screen off instead of activating the screensaver was a better means of preventing screen burn-in in a manner that didn't use up as much power
don't know if that's exactly why, but I think it's a pretty safe bet
central's right. screensavers were originally developed because keeping any image displayed on a CRT for very long will fuck up the phosphors and leave a burnt-in image. Newer monitors that can turn on and off more quickly make that an option too.
Microsoft is very committed to not causing users unnecessary harm not directly caused by themselves, and when Windows 98 came out plenty of users were still using CRTs.
Guessing this without looking it up: as we switched over to more energy efficient, smaller monitors with faster startup times it became less of a necessity to keep the screen turned on constantly and generally it was recognized that turning the screen off instead of activating the screensaver was a better means of preventing screen burn-in in a manner that didn't use up as much power
The development of DPMS in the early 1990s was pretty much the death knell for any screen saver that wasn't pretty enough to justify its existence. If the video card could turn the monitor off itself, that's one less thing you had to remember!
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
I have a vague but amusing memory of my mother trying to explain screensavers to my dad about 20 years ago.
"I don't get it. If you're not using the computer, shouldn't you just turn it off?"
"But then you have to wait for it to turn back on again. If you're just getting up to get some coffee or something, it's just not worth it."
"I still don't get it."
"It's like this: when you go to bed, you turn the lights off in the living room. But if you're just going to the bathroom, you leave them on, because it's not worth the time to turn them off and back on again."
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
Decisions that made sense in 1990 that have had horrible implications ever since: making Windows screensavers regular executable files but with a ".scr" extension.
At the time that was probably the most sensible way to design such a thing, as opposed to having to deisgn some sort of "screensaver engine" that took non-executable files...but so much malware has abused it over the years by taking their malicious exe file and putting ".scr" on the end to pretend it's a screensaver.
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
Was it? I can't think of any other way you could do screensavers in the constraints of the computers of the time. It's not like you could have some massive pre-rendered video file or something on a 500 MB hard drive...
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
True, true.
I have it in my head that the development of Windows 3 happened in a simpler time, when it was basically trusted that programmers would use computers responsibly and nobody foresaw the massive abuse that would happen.
I have it in my head that the development of Windows 3 happened in a simpler time, when it was basically trusted that programmers would use computers responsibly and nobody foresaw the massive abuse that would happen.
But that's probably not the case.
Well, the first MS-DOS virus was 4 years prior, so.
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
4 years doesn't seem like that long to me, but I guess back in the late '80s-early '90s that was like two decades in computer years.
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
You are the end result of a “would you push the button” prompt where the prompt was “you have unlimited godlike powers but you appear to all and sundry to be an impetuous child” – Zero, 2022
Comments
Microsoft is very committed to not causing users unnecessary harm not directly caused by themselves, and when Windows 98 came out plenty of users were still using CRTs.
anyway xscreensaver has some good ones.
(Also, screensavers are actually detrimental to the majority of LCD screens, since they force the backlight to remain on.)
but mainly this i can simply have my screen auto-power-off
Also, Windows Maze was always good fun.
At the time that was probably the most sensible way to design such a thing, as opposed to having to deisgn some sort of "screensaver engine" that took non-executable files...but so much malware has abused it over the years by taking their malicious exe file and putting ".scr" on the end to pretend it's a screensaver.
I have it in my head that the development of Windows 3 happened in a simpler time, when it was basically trusted that programmers would use computers responsibly and nobody foresaw the massive abuse that would happen.
But that's probably not the case.