Dear LPG

I am a pensioner, but I supposed that I got involved with computers back in the 1980s when typists first encountered them as their typewriters disappeared and were replaced with word processors.  I had one at home by the early 1990s and have always been intrigued by them.  One of my favourite aspects of the older computers were the screensavers.   They were much more important in the good old days of desk tops and lap tops, but the facility is still available on some tablets too.

Do you remember the days when if you left your computer for any length of time some odd moving pattern would suddenly appear on your computer screen?   There were many to choose from and we could alter the amount of time that passed before it started if you did not go back to your computer.

The reason we needed them was to make sure that your computer monitor was not left on with one static pattern because if it was always the same, that pattern would alter the quality of the picture on your screen.  It worked really well for computers used in offices where they would end up being left on while a worker went off to research something or answer a telephone call.  The screen could be left for ages with the same pattern burning certain colours into the screens.   In the end most people who still had a laptop or desk top ended up replacing the generic screensavers with a progression of personal pictures which do exactly the same job of keeping the pixels on the screen moving, but I remember the days when having the latest screensaver was as popular as getting the most popular ring tones on your smart phone, before that got more personal for the youngsters these days.

Now that we have moved on to tablets and mobile smart phones and iPhones they have been replaced with the capacity to automatically switch off after a short while.  The automatic switch-off not only saves the screen but also helps to conserve the power charge.

But for all that, I remember which ones were my favourites back at the turn of the century when I first got involved.

EY, Forest Hill

LPG has found some information on the subject

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