Star Trek: The Screen Saver. (Software Review) (Evaluation)
by David English

These days, screen savers are almost as popular as spreadsheet programs and word processors. Walk through any office building, and you'll see many of the computers running After Dark, Intermission, or Windows 3.1's built-in screen saver. Swirling colors, flying toasters, fractal landscapes, dueling blenders, tropical fish--few computers get any rest during the day.

Berkeley Systems, the developer of After Dark, has created yet another screen saver--this one based on the original "Star Trek" television series. The 15 different modules include Spock walking across your screen, the sick bay's medical readouts, an atlas of planets, the ship's crew stalking the silicon-based horta, Scotty's technical files on various electronic devices and space vehicles, an animated sequence with Kirk in the captain's chair, two Tholian ships entrapping the Enterprise in an energy web, a Starfleet Academy final exam, and, of course, a room filling up with tribbles.

If you're running Windows with an 8-bit (256-color) display card, many of the modules will be of photographic quality. If you have a Windows-compatible sound card, you'll be able to hear digital recordings of Kirk, Spock, Bones, and Scotty. (A PC-speaker sound driver is included, but its performance can vary greatly among computers.) In addition, you can use the Star Trek modules with After Dark.

Whether you need to protect your screen from phosphor burn-in or you're simply a fan of the series, Star Trek: The Screen Saver is a great way to brighten up (and darken) your computer screen. Live long and phosphor!