If you’re having miserable Mondays It might be a pleasant knowing that this day is the 30th anniversary of GIF image format that was released to CompuServe in the month day of May 1987. Read amazing facts GIFs here!
Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) nowadays is renowned mostly for its funny animated images that we send to each other rather as opposed to its original intent.
Actually, the majority of people who use GIF aren’t old enough to be able to recall the date of its release. In light of the GIF being 30 years old I thought it might be an excellent idea to provide a few interesting facts about this image format.
Amazing Facts GIFS
1. It was released around the time of Windows 2.0
GIFs have been around nearly for a long time, but you aren’t aware of what else was into the picture at the time of the format’s launch. It was revealed that the GIF image format was developed in the year 1986, and was officially released on May 28 1987 to CompuServe.
It was the first Internet service company to be established within the United States. Be aware that many users were still using DOS however a large number of more savvy people were using the most recent and advanced technology offered by Microsoft and Microsoft namely Windows 2.0. In 1992, it wasn’t until when the more popular 3.1 version Windows was launched.
To claim that the Internet could not be recognized today for someone who was surfing through the Web back in the year 1987 would be a huge understatement. Web browsers weren’t even invented therefore there wasn’t any “browsing” to do. Instead, they dialed into CompuServe and bulletin board systems (BBS) or RELAY (a chat service).
The latest technology in Internet connectivity in the past was a modem running at 1200-baud that could boast “break-neck” rates of 2.4 Kbps (if you had an internet connection that could send the equivalent of two bits for each baud). This is roughly 110,000 times slower that what consider “mediocre” in the present.
2. GIFs were not originally designed to be used in Animation
It’s 2017 and the magnificent GIF is now used as a convenient method to create and share pictures online. This connection has become so powerful that when you search for something that has the word “GIF” following it, you’ll be able to find many animations that are similar to the subject you’re searching for. However, GIF was not designed originally to serve this reason. To comprehend whythis is, first we have to examine the problem GIF developers were trying to resolve.
As you were a kid and the Internet was just beginning to gain traction the bandwidth was extremely restricted. As I mentioned earlier you could download at around 2.4 milliobits per second, in the event that you were able to pay for the high price prices back in the days of.
In the dark era of the 1990s, each byte was precious and even computer makers such as IBM and Apple were able to create their own image display format. To lessen the effects of this issue the creators of GIF were hoping to make images uniform over the Internet. Because JPEG was in the process of development (and did not have a lot of consideration to reducing bandwidth) It was the job of the programmers to make sure that they could create images that were easily read and had minimal influence on bandwidth.
Also, read Amazing Double Facts Math!
GIFs were created using an easy 256-color scheme that utilized the special compression method known as LZW that minimizes distortion. This was ideal to share graphs and charts which required lots of clarity but didn’t need many colors.
It was not until the GIF89a specification was released in 1989 that this image format finally began to allow animation. We didn’t fully take advantage of this until mid-90s. For nearly a decade, we sat on desktops with windows but no animated pictures!
3. The GIF was On Life Support One Point
It’s not difficult for people to overlook this however there are plenty of users browsing the Web today who didn’t experience it in the beginning of 2000s. The use of animated GIFs started decreasing around in 2006, and then in 2012 it didn’t find an online presence. In the blink of an eye the GIF began making an appearance in 2013.
A few more creative users started making use of GIFs instead of emoticons to show more intricate forms of expression. The more geeky types even created the images of their own. Facebook did not even notice and revamped their site to make it more compatible with GIFs in 2015.
Do you know any other bizarre and interesting facts about this adored image format? Drop a note below to share your thoughts to give a tribute to this unique invention!
