Afterglow

Afterglow is a macOS application that runs classic After Dark screen saver modules — including Flying Toasters, Fish!, and Starry Skyline — natively on modern Macs, with no ROMs required. It is an emulator built specifically for After Dark modules, running the original 68k module code rather than offering a remake or a port. The project is created in the spirit of software preservation, with the stated goal of making After Dark easy to enjoy today and for years to come. Afterglow ships as version 1.0.1, a Universal binary that requires macOS 14 or later, and it includes a screen saver module for modern macOS so that the classic modules you import can run as your actual screen saver. In the 1990s, Berkeley Systems' After Dark screen savers brought Flying Toasters, Fish, and Starry Skylines to Macintosh screens everywhere. They served a practical purpose by preventing burn-in on CRT monitors, but they also entertained, with animations that could be funny, surreal, beautiful, and sometimes gross. Those modules are described on the Afterglow site as works of art worth preserving. Enjoying them in the present day has not been simple, however: running After Dark modules has involved fussy configuration of Mac OS emulators or vintage hardware. Even then, no single emulator or vintage computer can faithfully run every module — some animate too fast, and some animate too slowly. Afterglow exists to remove that friction and to run the modules faithfully on the Mac you already own. The core of Afterglow is its emulation approach. Afterglow is an emulator built specifically for running After Dark modules — the original 68k module code, not a remake or port — with no dependencies on ROMs or classic Mac OS. It is powered by the Musashi 68k CPU emulator, and Afterglow reimplements just enough of the Macintosh Toolbox and OS APIs to run After Dark modules. Because of that design, no Apple ROM or classic Mac OS installation is required. Every module runs inside the same purpose-built environment, which is why the project can aim to run modules faithfully rather than accepting the speed and compatibility problems that come with general-purpose Mac OS emulators or vintage machines. Modules are not included with Afterglow, but importing is designed to be easy. You drag and drop module files, disk images, or compressed archives into the app, and Afterglow extracts and imports them automatically. As the site puts it, whatever you have, if there are modules in there, you can probably drop it into Afterglow. That matters because After Dark material has survived in many different shapes over the decades — loose module files, disk images, and compressed archives. Rather than asking you to identify the correct format and extract it manually, Afterglow handles the extraction step for you so that getting a module running is a matter of dragging something in. Afterglow also lets you browse and install software releases directly from the Internet Archive without leaving the app. Inside the app there is an Internet Archive browser that displays cover art for releases spanning After Dark 1.0 through After Dark 4.5J. This gives you a way to find classic After Dark software from within Afterglow itself, instead of searching elsewhere and then working out how to bring the files into the application. The same preservation-minded browsing extends to packaging: Afterglow can display a rotatable 3D preview of retail boxes, and the site shows the More After Dark retail box as a 3D preview. Because Afterglow includes a screen saver module for modern macOS, you can run any of the classic modules you have imported as your Mac's screen saver. The site frames the appeal of screen savers as the surprise and delight of returning to your computer and seeing something unexpected: a psychedelic fractal, a procedurally generated mountain landscape, or a Bad Dog defiling your desktop. Afterglow's screen saver module ties the emulated classic modules back into the modern macOS experience, and the site notes that the Liquid Glass lock screen has never looked better with those modules running behind it. Beyond importing and the screen saver, Afterglow provides module controls and a full-screen mode. The module controls expose an individual module's settings; the site shows Starry Skyline's controls, which include Background, Buildings, Building Height, and a Flasher option, displayed alongside the module's original settings and notes. The app also lists a randomizer and a multimodule option among its capabilities. Together these options cover both deliberate use — dialing in a specific module and its settings — and looser, more casual use, where modules cycle or combine for variety. Afterglow rounds out its feature set with several extras aimed at presentation and preservation. It lists 3D box art, so original packaging can be viewed as a rotatable 3D object inside the app. It lists a CRT shader, which sits among the display options the app offers. It also lists a resource inspector, and a DrawMorph editor. These appear alongside the module controls, full-screen mode, randomizer, and multimodule in Afterglow's own summary of what the app can do, positioning it as more than a simple launcher: it is a viewing environment for classic After Dark modules and the material that surrounds them. The clearest benefit Afterglow claims is simplicity. Instead of fussy configuration of Mac OS emulators or vintage hardware, you get an emulator purpose-built for After Dark modules that runs the original 68k code with no ROMs and no classic Mac OS installation. Instead of hunting down software elsewhere, you can browse the Internet Archive inside the app. Instead of wrestling with archives, you can drag and drop module files, disk images, or compressed archives and let Afterglow extract and import them. And instead of the modules only living inside a separate emulator window, they can run as your actual macOS screen saver. Concrete ways Afterglow is used follow from those capabilities. You can bring an existing collection of After Dark material onto a modern Mac by dragging module files, disk images, or compressed archives into the app and letting it extract and import them automatically. You can set a classic module such as Flying Toasters, Fish!, Starry Skyline, Satori, or Bad Dog as your macOS screen saver and let it appear when your Mac is idle. You can browse the Internet Archive browser inside the app to find and install releases from After Dark 1.0 through After Dark 4.5J without leaving Afterglow. You can open a module's controls and adjust settings such as Starry Skyline's Background, Buildings, Building Height, and Flasher, with the module's original settings and notes visible beside them. You can view original packaging, such as a rotatable 3D preview of the More After Dark retail box. And you can run modules in full-screen mode, or use the randomizer and multimodule options the app lists. Afterglow is aimed at Mac users who want to run these classic modules natively on macOS 14 or later. It suits people with an interest in software preservation and retro Mac software, particularly those who remember Berkeley Systems' After Dark screen savers — Flying Toasters by J. Eastman & P. Beard, Starry Skyline by James J. Eastman (©1989, 90 Berkeley Systems Inc.) — and want to keep enjoying them without maintaining vintage hardware or a classic Mac OS installation. Distribution is a Universal binary macOS app, version 1.0.1, with a changelog and a help site available; the site provides an email contact and a Mastodon account for questions or feedback. Pricing is not stated on the page. The summary takeaway is straightforward: Afterglow turns a preservation problem into a download. It is an emulator built specifically for After Dark modules, running the original 68k module code on modern macOS with no ROMs or classic Mac OS required, and it wraps that emulation in practical conveniences — drag-and-drop importing, an in-app Internet Archive browser, module controls, full-screen mode, a randomizer, multimodule support, 3D box art, a CRT shader, a resource inspector, a DrawMorph editor, and a screen saver module for modern macOS. For anyone who loved Flying Toasters, Fish!, or Starry Skyline the first time around, Afterglow is a way to see them again on the Mac they use today.