Hey, Remember Screensavers?

I was introduced to computers fairly early in life. They were large, beige colored boxes that for the most part held little interest for me. I mean, there's only so much use for a massive calculator when you have grass stained knees and a snot nose.

Somewhere around the end of my elementary school daze I ended up at my mother's work--home to many computers. I remember being fascinated with PegLeg, a Galaga-style space shooter, and with her STAR TREK screensaver.

Pre-the-world-is-ending-because-we're-energy-hogs, people liked to waste electricity by leaving their computers on all the time. Monitors weren't as good and screen-burn was apparently a real problem (I've only see it on ATM screens and CCTV monitors). Her Mac would instantly fire up the screensaver if you put the pointer in the far corner and didn't touch the mouse for a few moments.

Over-pixelated clown fish chugged their way through a blurry seafoam "fish tank." I was enthralled with screensavers. They were somewhere between cartoons and video games when it came to entertainment. The STAR TREK screensaver suite my mom bought had a number of really cool screensavers. There was one where the screen slowly filled up with tribbles (who multiply like rabbits). There was another one where the Enterprise drifted along the screen as the Tholian Web slowly unfurled around it--trapping the ship. I also saw a really funny Three Stooges screensaver ("ya knucklehead!").

A few years later (actually a lot later) I decided my Dell laptop needed a Matrix-like screensaver. I foolishly decided to not pay for said screensaver, but instead just find a free one online. Needless to say, I got my screensaver--and a host of trojans and other Internet nasties. Here it is, 2010 and I'm on my third computer...and you know what? I don't use screensavers.

I don't know very many people who still use them. Most people (such as myself) have their computers set up to just got black. No more clownfish. No more tribbles. No more Matrix scrawls.

Part of me misses screensavers. I'm sure there are people reading this who still use them, but for the most part, they've vanished from my world. Kinda makes me wonder what other things will vanish.