One of the most fascinating rabbit holes I've ever witnessed in PC Shareware: for several versions (until 5.x), the MS-DOS screensaver program, DAZZLE, would display this image - and its somewhat cryptic caption - upon exiting the program. Where'd it come from? What does it mean?

I had always wondered if this image, of the space man sitting at a drafting table, was based on any existing paintings or drawings, perhaps from a cover of a science fiction novel, so I happened to look in the rather exhaustively detailed, 25+ page manual that comes with it. It did not answer that question, but it does answer what the deal is with that caption - complete with biblical citations.

This goes on for about 5 pages in itself.

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Certainly, assigning a Divine Inspiration to your computer program is not unheard of (the tale of Temple OS comes to mind), but it's certainly unusual to see it justified so, for a screen saver. And definitely, as the author states, a different motivation than the more "drug trip inspired" graphical demos that were Dazzle's contemporaries.

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