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From: dplatt@teknowledge-vaxc.ARPA (Dave Platt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Screen saver for a Mac II
Message-ID: <16292@teknowledge-vaxc.ARPA>
Date: Wed, 2-Sep-87 13:04:50 EDT
Article-I.D.: teknowle.16292
Posted: Wed Sep  2 13:04:50 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 5-Sep-87 06:37:04 EDT
Organization: Teknowledge, Inc., Palo Alto CA
Lines: 45

While installing PD/shareware stuff on a friend's new Mac II last
night (see my previous posting for information about games that run on
the II) I tried most of my collection of screen-savers to see which,
if any, would work.  Most don't;  one does.

The Mac II in question has 1 meg of memory, the Apple video card
(4-bit pixels), and an Apple monochrome monitor;  the control panel
was set in the black-and-white, 16-shade setting.

AutoBlack		Didn't try; uses alternate screen buffer and
			almost certainly won't work.

Fade to Black		BOOM!

ScreenSave		Put up the menu, but the screen didn't blank
			after two minutes of disuse as I requested.
			May be disfunctional, or may be stepping on
			memory?

ZoomIdle		Blanks out (and runs string art in) a window
			in the upper-left corner of the Mac II screen.
			Guess how big the blanked window is!

New Idle		Works like a charm!  Blacks out entire screen,
			flashes a moving trash-can, and restores the
			screen properly when the mouse is clicked.
			[Requires that applications understand and
			correctly process the "Hey, your window has
			just been uncovered;  refresh it!" event].

I don't recall whether New Idle chews up CPU while the screen is being
blanked, or whether it moves the trashcan around via a VBL task of
some sort (as AutoBlack does).  If the latter, then it should be
possible for tasks such as spreadsheet recalculations, long downloads,
and so forth to run while the screen is being blacked out;  if the
former, then New Idle is useful only when the Mac is really not being
used.

New Idle must be invoked manually from the apple menu whenever you
wish to blank the screen;  it does not automatically blank out the
screen after N minutes of screen inactivity.

HEY APPLE: How about building a screen-blanking capability into
MultiFinder, akin to the one in New Idle but which automatically
blanks the screen after several minutes of no-user-generated-events?