From Guardian to Entertainer - the History of Screensavers

Rare old school IT professionals still remember the practical value of early screensavers. Back in late 1980 computers were far from what we see now in almost any western household.

In the past the computer was used for rare and special operations till World Wide Web brought the new kind of addiction to the developed nations � surfing the web. The need for screensavers on those first truly personal computers was of a pure practical nature. They were a product of a pure necessity.

The cause of the problem was technologies used in monitors of that time. PC monitors back than which were frequently left on for longer periods of time quickly became unusable. The process of bringing the picture to the screen of those old monitors was affected by a phosphorus burn if the screen was left on for too long. Regardless the fact that monitors quickly became a mass production product, there still were no cheap and reliable answers to that issue.

Relying on PC screen evolution to bring some answers was not an option; other methods would have to be tried out. A fantastic non-hardware product swiped away every monitor related worry of those days.

World first ever screensavers started their victorious siege. It was just a matter of time for screensaver providers to realize there could be much more to screensavers than just simple words randomly flying across the screen.

Those first windows operating systems still had to cope with monitors which development was staggering well behind what motherboards and computer chips were experiencing. That difference between technological progresses in software vs. hardware regarding PC monitors somehow helped screensavers to overgrow their initial purpose. Modern PC monitors are all immune to what once presented a serious threat for them.

It would certainly be ecologically more responsible to use the power saving function which turns off inactive PC and darkens or turns of the monitor as well. However you look at it, leaving a blank screen when going out for a coffee is just no fun at all.

If once a couple of short hickuping sentences were enough, today a screensaver has to be at least partly animated to be selected by PC users. If not at least one of basic human emotions are affected, a screen saver is likely to pass into oblivion. Evolution of this software has shown that addressing our feelings is the way to go. From trivial graphic and programmable fonts to photo slideshows, animations and sound, screensavers seem to evolve in a completely new media.

Information highways are another reason why the screen saver evolution seems to be going on faster than ever. A look at interactive screensavers with animation reveals the future lines of modern animated screensavers.

Regardless to where the software geeks of the future will take us with their new products, each and every single phase in evolution of this software gains a mass of loyal users and it is hard to imagine that any of different kinds of screensavers will ever loose their charms.

Perhaps the biggest boost for further experiments with this kind of software is the same old internet that made it so popular from the start. We live in the society where all payable software solutions have their free alternatives. All it takes is to check the number of pages in yahoo for free screensavers.

There is no such thing as free lunch, but this does not count for screensavers.

The money for making new screensavers comes from free software providers which attach their software into the package with the downloaded screensaver. Following the pace of new screensavers available online, it is hard to imagine the developers will stop at free animated screensavers.

We can all look forward to new ideas which will soon be conquering PC screens worldwide.