[Coco] . Gif

[RETRO Innovations]

On 3/24/2022 8:38 AM, Allen Huffman wrote:
>>>> Wilhite was looking for a way to send
>>>> high-quality graphics in color during the early stages of the
>>>> internet.
>
> Is this just normal “news getting facts incorrect,” or was GIF actually designed for the pre-web internet? I thought it was commissioned by or at least written for Compuserve?

Compuserve unveiled it in 1987, and it was designed for their benefit.

> It certainly pre-dates a web browser?

Indeed. In fact, HTML prior to the NCSA Mosaic browser did not have a 
way to display graphics inline.  Marc Andreessen actually invented the 
tag for Mosaic development 
(https://thehistoryoftheweb.com/the-origin-of-the-img-tag/), and 
supported GIF early in the process (before his tag, the GIF would be a 
link like a web page link, and you would click on it and the graphic 
would open in a new application).

Before this, those of us lucky enough to be on NSFNet (an actual early 
stage of the Internet) would download GIF files using ftp and then 
display them using our favorite GIF slideshow app.

Jim, "was an undergrad at University of Illinois in the '90s and 
witnessed part of the birth of Mosaic" Brain