Inventor of GIF Computer Imagery Has Died at Age 74 - WSJ
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Inventor of GIF Computer
Imagery Has Died at Age 74
Mar 24, 2022 08:35PM
Stephen Wilhite receiving his Webby lifetime achievement award
in May 2013 for inventing the GIF.
Photo: Associated Press
Stephen Wilhite was merely trying to solve a technical problem
when he invented the GIF, or graphics interchange format, in
1987. As a programmer at the computer-services firm
CompuServe, he was seeking a way for users of incompatible
computers to share graphics files.
The first GIF he created was unspectacular—a picture of an
airplane. Only much later was the technology adapted for the
brief, looping animations that jazz up social-media postings.
Mr. Wilhite, who died March 14 of Covid-19 at the age of 74,
“never got 1 cent” out of his invention, said his wife, Kathaleen
Wilhite. Nor, she said, did he complain about not making a
fortune: “He was just so proud that he had done that.”
He did win a Webby lifetime achievement award in 2013 for
inventing the GIF. At the insistence of his wife, he rented a tuxedo
for the ceremony. He used the occasion to inform the world that
GIF is pronounced like Jif, the peanut butter brand. Mr. Wilhite’s
favorite GIF was a classic featuring a dancing baby.
Around the age of 51, he retired early after suffering a stroke that
made it difficult for him to speak clearly. He enjoyed camping and
tinkering with a model train layout that filled a 170-square-foot
room in his home in Milford, Ohio.
Stephen Earl Wilhite was born March 3, 1948, and grew up in
West Chester, Ohio, near Cincinnati. His father worked in a
factory, and his mother was a nurse. He attended Ohio State
University on a scholarship.
Survivors include his wife, a son from an earlier marriage and four
sisters. He met Kathaleen Bauer through an internet dating
service in 2009. Their first date was at a Cracker Barrel
restaurant. They married about a year later.
Despite my protestations, “GIF is pronounced like Jif, the peanut butter brand”.