Windows 3 Animated Background/Desktop/Wallpaper
- by Synetech
In the summer of 1995, I visited some family in Los Angeles. My uncle had a computer with Windows 3 (or some version thereof since Windows 95 had not been released yet).
In Windows 3, there was no desktop or wallpaper like in later versions; instead you could set it to a simple pattern (still possible in later versions before XP) like hounds-tooth or bricks (interestingly, there seems to be next to nothing available on the Internet about this anymore; no screenshots and almost no pages).
I recall being amused when I found a program (on the still young “world-wide web”) that would actually let you set an animated background. It was smooth and fluid and was quite an amazing thing at the time.
If I recall correctly, it had several built-in animations including one of a light-orange-pink background over which storks flew towards the top-left, possibly with some light stuff floating in the “background” (they were actually animated and flapped their wings, not simply translated coordinates). The storks were somewhat simplified, black-line drawings.
Over the years, I’ve tried finding it again a few times but never could. Worse, it’s become harder and harder over time as new programs came out and polluted the search results.
I’m hoping that someone remembers this software and knows some useful information like the author or where to download it.
(No, it’s not ScreenPaper. That was created in 1997 to let you set a screensaver as the Windows 95/NT4 background. This was at least two years earlier for Windows 3 and I’m almost certain it had these animations built-in—I don’t recall any stork screensavers for Windows 3.)
