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        FGAZ 18-08                   Page 2                   28 Mar 2022   
      
      
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        RIP: Creators of the GIF and TRS-80   
      
        From: https://tinyurl.com/57y5cjnh (theregister.com)   
      
        Thank you, Stephen E. Wilhite for your seminal image format, and John   
        Roach for your pioneering microcomputer   
      
        Simon Sharwood, APAC Editor   
        Thu 24 Mar 2022 // 08:00 UTC   
      
        Two important figures in computing industry have died.   
      
        Stephen E. Wilhite will be remembered as the creator of the Graphics   
        Interchange Format -- the ubiquitous GIF -- and always insisted it   
        be pronounced as "jif" with a soft "g".   
      
        Those who pointed out that his preferred pronunciation was   
        inconsistent or illogical were met with a stern: "They are wrong".   
      
        Wilhite created the GIF when working at CompuServe -- a pioneering   
        online service founded in 1969 and which, by the mid-1980s, had   
        evolved to the point some users expected to see graphics when they   
        dialled in to check their mails or chat in forums.   
      
        Wilhite and his colleagues devised the GIF in 1987 to make image   
        display possible on CompuServe. The format became a de facto standard   
        and then enjoyed an enormous revival in the early 2000s thanks to its   
        ability to display animations -- a feature greatly appreciated before   
        the widespread advent of streaming video -- and later by users of   
        social media.   
      
        A family obituary for Wilhite states that he received a Webby Lifetime   
        Achievement Award for the GIF and used his acceptance speech to again   
        restate his preferred pronunciation for the file format he created.   
      
        Wilhite and finished his career as chief architect from America Online   
        (which acquired CompuServe in 1997). He died aged 74 and is survived   
        by his wife Kathaleen, his son David, several stepchildren, 11   
        grandchildren and three great grandchildren.   
      
        Many GIFs almost certainly found their way onto the TRS-80 -- an   
        early personal microcomputer sold by Tandy through its network of   
        Radio Shack stores.   
      
        The computer was the brainchild of John Roach, who in the mid-1970s   
        saw the growing market for personal computers sold as kits and decided   
        a market existed for a pre-built machine.   
      
        That machine was the TRS-80, and its $599.95 price tag (about $1050 in   
        today's money) saw it sell strongly when it reached stores in 1977.   
        And as Tandy ran over 8,000 stores at the time, the TRS-80 brought   
        computers into the suburbs like no other previous machine.   
      
      
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