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Stephen Wilhite, the man widely credited as being the creator of the Graphics Interchange Format image, better known as the gif, has died at the age of 74.
Wilhite’s wife Kathleen has been confirming with media outlets that her husband died of Covid on March 14.
He worked for decades at CompuServe, and while there led the team responsible for the gif. Introduced in 1987, at the time it was intended as an optimal way to create colour images, a lot easier to download over dial-up modem speeds than existing formats.
“He invented GIF all by himself—he actually did that at home and brought it into work after he perfected it,” Kathleen told The Verge. “He would figure out everything privately in his head and then go to town programming it on the computer.”
Wilhite’s wife Kathleen has been confirming with media outlets that her husband died of Covid on March 14.
He worked for decades at CompuServe, and while there led the team responsible for the gif. Introduced in 1987, at the time it was intended as an optimal way to create colour images, a lot easier to download over dial-up modem speeds than existing formats.
“He invented GIF all by himself—he actually did that at home and brought it into work after he perfected it,” Kathleen told The Verge. “He would figure out everything privately in his head and then go to town programming it on the computer.”
