The Man Who Invented GIF Passes Away at 74; Here’s to Stephen E. Wilhite!

Mar. 26, 2022

While GIFs have become popular amongst general internet-treaders only in the recent past, the Graphic Image Format (GIF) was invented way back in 1987 by a team of engineers at CompuServe. It was led by the American computer scientist Stephen E. Wilhite, who is deemed as the inventor of GIF. Unfortunately, Wilhite succumbed to COVID-19 last week and passed away in his hometown of Milford, Ohio.

Inventor of GIF Passes Away

Stephen Wilhite worked as a lead engineer for CompuServe in his early years. He helped develop various systems at the company, including CompuServe’s wire protocol like Host Micro Interface (HMI) and the CompuServe B protocol for the CompuServe Information Manager (CIM).

Talking about her husband, Kathaleen Wilhite toldThe VergethatStephen was surrounded by his loved ones until his last breath. Hisobituary pagementions that“even with all his accomplishments, he remained a very humble, kind, and good man.”As per Kathaleen, Wilhite was the proudest of the creation of GIF. Wilhite was also fond of camping and traveling and spent most of his time doing so after the retired in the 2000s.

“They are wrong. It is a soft ‘G,’ pronounced ‘Jif.’ End of story,”Stephen added tosettle the debate once and for all.

With Wilhite’s passing away, we lostanother brilliant computer scientistwho contributed to making one of the most used digital image formats. So, we ought to thank Mr. Wilhite for his creation and hope he rests in peace. As an ode to Wilhite, share with us your favorite GIFs in the comments below.

A geek at heart, you’ll find me fidgeting with an iOS device or sitting in front of the laptop, scouring the internet to find interesting technological innovations. In my free time, you’d find me playing Valorant or listening to Pink Floyd.