This one's probably a longshot, but I thought I'd throw this one out there... The "Beauty and the Beast" module does not display colours properly. I have an SVGA monitor on IBM PS/1 internal video (I have a modular PS/1 with an external monitor) and everything turns up wrong. I know it's not supposed to based on the picture in the manual and also because I've watched the movie before and know what the characters are supposed to look like. I'm not sure if it's a conflict with Windows 95 or not...I normally display the Magic Kingdom module and it works fine UNLESS I'm working in Word 97--maybe it's a conflict between the After Dark engine and Windows 95's palettes? I recall it working fine on Windows 3.1. When I first bought this screen saver in 1995 I was still running 3.1 and there were no problems. Took it off when I upgraded to Windows 95 initially only because I was short on hard drive space. I decided to get it back out a month ago just for old time's sake. It's been over a decade since I had it installed so my memory is pretty faint about any conflicts or whatnot. I read through the manual from cover to cover and couldn't find anything about conflicts with certain computers--it came out after my PS/1 was made but before Windows 95. I didn't even have my sound card yet when I first got it and am just now enjoying all the sounds that are in this collection! Berkeley Systems (the developer) is long gone, so I can't ask them about it. If anyone out there has this oldie but goodie, or has experience with IBM PS/1 Consultants (that's the name of the computer, not a profession) from 1993, please let me know if there's some setting I could adjust or something to get it to work. FYI: My hardware...50MHz 486, internal video adaptor for the IBM PS/1 (I think it's configured as a Cirrus Logic), standard IBM SVGA display (the PS/1 model), 16MB RAM, Creative Labs AWE32 sound card, and of course Windows 95 (upgrade edition).

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Right click somewhere empty on the desktop and select Properties --> Settings. Find out what is the setting of your colors. 256 colors (aka 8 bit)? 32K colors (aka 16 bit)? The software may be expecting 32 bit color.

Note that if you don't have enough memory for more than 256 colors your computer can slow to a crawl since it will be accessing the hard drive as virtual memory every time you load a new screen.

When my mother got her first Windows computer it had only 32MB and 256 colors. It displayed a lot of things OK and some badly. I set it to 16 bit color and it slowed down. I called around the city and found a dealer who had that kind of memory at a reasonable price. It was the dealer who put the computer together! With 80MB in it it was OK. But on some sites parts of images still looked bad because they were intended as 32 bit images and with 16 bit it chose 256 best colors for each pane and some gently shaded parts had artifacts like layers of shelves.

When I worked at a charity as a secretary I found their Win98 computer made of surplus parts was so slow, it could not access the internet as a practical matter. It had 16 bit color and not enough memory. I reduced it to 256 colors which made the default cloudy sky desktop an ugly mess. I went home and composed a wallpaper of the charity's corporate logo in the 16 default colors and put that up. I tweaked the old machine till I had tripled its speed.

Then the charity had a better year for donations and they got a new Dell with WinXP. And I was replaced as secretary for fear I was a dangerous hacker.

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I tried all of the color modes and I think it may be an incompatibility between my computer's internal video and the software, with Windows 95 perhaps coming in the middle of the two. IBM was notorious for using proprietary equipment that wasn't compatible with the "status quo" of the day. I'm guessing that is where the problem lies. I checked the manual (yes, I still have it after all these years!) and I meet every requirement in there including video. If I pick up an old video card sometime I may try that in the IBM to see if it makes a difference.


On Tuesday, June 10, 2008 at 5:11 pm, dhm wrote:
>
>Right click somewhere empty on the desktop and select Properties --> Settings.
> Find out what is the setting of your colors. 256 colors (aka 8 bit)? 32K colors
>(aka 16 bit)? The software may be expecting 32 bit color.
>

>Note that if you don't have enough memory for more than 256 colors your computer
>can slow to a crawl since it will be accessing the hard drive as virtual memory every
>time you load a new screen.
>

>When my mother got her first Windows computer it had only 32MB and 256 colors. It
>displayed a lot of things OK and some badly. I set it to 16 bit color and it slowed
>down. I called around the city and found a dealer who had that kind of memory at
>a reasonable price. It was the dealer who put the computer together! With 80MB
>in it it was OK. But on some sites parts of images still looked bad because they
>were intended as 32 bit images and with 16 bit it chose 256 best colors for each
>pane and some gently shaded parts had artifacts like layers of shelves.
>

>When I worked at a charity as a secretary I found their Win98 computer made of surplus
>parts was so slow, it could not access the internet as a practical matter. It had
>16 bit color and not enough memory. I reduced it to 256 colors which made the default
>cloudy sky desktop an ugly mess. I went home and composed a wallpaper of the charity's
>corporate logo in the 16 default colors and put that up. I tweaked the old machine
>till I had tripled its speed.
>

>Then the charity had a better year for donations and they got a new Dell with WinXP.
> And I was replaced as secretary for fear I was a dangerous hacker.
>

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