Stephen Wilhiteone of the main inventors of GIF, died last week due to COVID at the age of 74according to his wife, Kathaleen, who spoke about it in a recent interview.
Stephen Wilhite worked on GIF, or Graphics Interchange Format, which is now used for reactions, messages and jokes, while in the 1980s he was employed at CompuServe. He retired in the early 2000s and he spent his time traveling, camping and building model trains in his basement.
Although GIFs are now synonymous with memes, this is not the reason why Wilhite created these types of images. CompuServe introduced them in the late 1980s as a way to distribute “high quality, high resolution graphics” but above all in color at a time when the internet was not quite as fast as it is now.
Here are the words of the wife:
He invented GIFs himself. He actually made it at home and put it into operation after perfecting it. He had discovered everything privately in his head and then went to town to program it on the computer.
Several messages from former colleagues on his obituary page claimed that Stephen also made other important contributions during his time at CompuServe, describing a hard worker who had a great influence on the company’s success.
After retiring, Stephen Wilhite traveled far and wide with his wife, but he also dedicated himself to his private life, so here is a nice anecdote told by Kathaleen, referring to one of his greatest passions, the trains:
When we built the house, we actually had a whole section in the basement for his train room. He has always done the plans and electrical work for the layout.
The information ends here for today, we just have to offer condolences to the family on our part too, we have lost a piece of internet history.
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