The Energy Saver pane can be set to actually cut power to the display. Īpple began including its own Desktop & Screen Saver preference pane with the introduction of Mac OS X (now macOS). The original goal of avoiding burn-in lost its priority, and screensavers began to be developed with their own functionality, such as PointCast, which made no claim to protect the monitor, but simply push media which self-started after the computer has been inactive for a pre-set period of time. Some modules could even add self-contained mini-games.

Screensavers for MacsĪfter Dark was an early series of popular screensavers for classic Mac OS which included a number of plug-in modules. Feature creep led these tiny (sometimes under 1 KB) programs to begin to add simple graphical effects, such as a starry sky, eventually leading to elaborate animations (often with sound effects) of increasing length and complexity without regard to usefulness. This philosophy led to the development of the first screensavers, which were little more than display blankers that just set the screen to all black. Įarly home video game systems of the 1970s, such as the Atari 2600, would change the screen in a lengthy animated loop while idling to prevent burn-in. Some CRTs were later developed with resistance to burn-in or would go into a built-in sleep mode after a period of inactivity.

menu bar or Control Strip) were shown at the same position on the screen for very long periods of time, the phosphor on the screen would 'fatigue' and that part of the screen would appear grayed out, even when the CRT was turned off. Before the 1990s, cathode-ray tubes (CRTs) used in televisions or computer monitors were prone to 'burn-in' if the same shapes or patterns (e.g.

Apple tv screensaver for mac