HAL 9000 status screen (C) http://halproject.com/
[Update: halproject.com has been abandoned.] I have a confession to make: I’m still using Flash, deliberately. Yes, that pesky piece of software that’s always nagging and begging to be updated. “You serious?!” you might ask, but there’s one peculiar software I don’t want to miss, and that’s this HAL 9000 screensaver. Writing this is almost a bit embarrassing, but we’re not talking about a browser game here: Joe Mackenzie, the maker of halproject.com has taken a lot of efforts to make this screensaver look as real as possible. He literally moved frame-to-frame through Kubrick’s masterpiece and reprogrammed every bit of HAL’s interface he could get aware of. The result is a timeless ‘user interface’ which not only fits surprisingly well to recent operating systems, but that also is a typographical delight*. All colours, graphics, fonts, animations etc – it’s all there. And even if you don’t like Flash running on your computer you might purchase the Wallpaper Pack for your desktop wallpaper. I find this archaic user interface very inspiring; who needs windows, anyway?
*More about typography in Science Fiction movies in general, and especially in ‘2001 – A Space Odyssey’ can be found in Dave Addey’s blog Typeset In The Future.
