Choosy software developers choose 'GIF'

© Mark Ollig

In 1987, Stephen Wilhite worked at CompuServe as a computing engineer.

At the time, CompuServe was a popular computer dial-up online service provider.

Wilhite was assigned by its chief technical officer, Alexander Trevor, to develop an improved image file extension format that could function across an assortment of software and computer systems.

During the 1980s, popular computers included Apple, Atari, Commodore, IBM, and Tandy TRS-80.

On May 28, 1987, Wilhite developed the new file saving arrangement, which CompuServe used as its proprietary image file format.

They called it a graphics interexchange format and used the acronym GIF.

GIF is a username file extension allowing the sharing of photographs, drawings, charts, weather maps, animation, and other images over dial-up telephone lines – regardless of the computer used.

An extension format using GIF became a widely used compact file format for graphical images that moved, called looping video animation.

In a telephone interview with the Washington Post newspaper, Trevor said GIF caught on quickly with software developers and confirmed, “Wilhite was the architect of GIF, no question about it.”

Once the web started over the internet, animated GIFs began appearing on websites; I also recall seeing them on Facebook’s predecessor, MySpace, in the early 2000s.

In 2012, GIF became so popular that Oxford English Dictionary named it Word of the Year.

GIF went through a lot of controversy among software developers and online users.

GIF used data-compression algorithms initially developed in 1977 and 1978 by Jacob Ziv and Abraham Lempel.

In 1983, a variation of Lempel and Ziv was created by Terry Welch, and the combined algorithms were named LZW.

A patent for LZW was obtained in 1985 by Sperry Corp., which became Unisys Corp.

In 1987, CompuServe used the LZW data compression method with their GIF, unaware of the existing patent.

In 1993, Unisys licensed CompuServe to use LZW with GIF; unfortunately, this did not sit well with other online service providers and computer programmers.

By 1995, a new data compression file format called Portable Network Graphics using the filename extension PNG was created by developers as an alternative for GIF.

PNG was not readily accepted because, at the time, programmers made software and web browsers to work with GIF. Therefore, developers could not easily replace it.

PNG began to become more widely used starting in 1996 as an alternative to GIF.

In 1999, Unisys changed its licensing practice, announcing the option for owners of certain non-commercial and private websites to obtain licenses on payment of a one-time license fee of $5000 or $7500.

This action did not prevent Unisys from being subjected to thousands of online attacks and rude emails from users, as many believed they would be charged a large dollar amount or sued for using GIFs on their websites.

Although hundreds of non-profit organizations, schools, and government agencies were given free GIF licenses using LZW, Unisys’ favorable rating received only a slight improvement from the public.

Unisys continued to be criticized by individuals and organizations, including one called the League for Programming Freedom, which orchestrated the “Burn All GIFs” crusade.

Some of you will remember this colossal GIF uproar.

The GIF conflict ended during the summer of 2004, and peace was restored when all LZW patents worldwide expired. Thus no fees were associated with using its compression techniques when using a GIF.

Newer web browsers and software were already developed, allowing GIF and PNG file formats.

Let us address another controversy concerning the pronunciation of GIF. Does the “G” sound like a soft g like in the word Jif, the peanut butter brand? Or a hard g, like the word gift?

“The Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations. They are wrong. It is a soft “G” and pronounced “jif.” End of story,” Stephen Wilhite reportedly said.

Wilhite studied computer science and engineering at Ohio State University and joined CompuServe shortly after the company was founded in 1969.

Stephen Wilhite developed compilers to translate source code from high-level computer programming.

In 1998, online service provider America Online (AOL) acquired CompuServe. Wilhite continued working there and retired after suffering a stroke in 2000.

Stephen Earl Wilhite, an American computer scientist, was born on March 3, 1948, in West Chester Township, Ohio, and recently passed away on March 14, 2022, at the age of 74.

The final resolution to the GIF pronunciation controversy comes directly from its creator, Stephen Wilhite. While he was on stage accepting the 2013 Lifetime Achievement Webby Award, a large display screen on the wall behind him flashed this message: “IT’S PRONOUNCED “JIF” NOT “GIF.”

This message brought applause and laughter from the audience. Wilhite smiled as he walked off the stage with his award.

You can watch his award presentation on the Webby Awards YouTube channel: https://bit.ly/38Khcab.

I took a screen capture of Stephen Wilhite and the GIF pronunciation message from my computer during the 2013 Webby Awards and saved the image as Wilhite_Award.gif.

In 1966, Grey Advertising came up with this famous slogan for Jif peanut butter: “Choosy Mothers Choose Jif.”

And, lest we forget: “choosy software developers choose GIF.”

Well, maybe not so much in 2022, but they once did.

Remembering early online social media

© Mark Ollig

In 2008 my oldest son was preparing for a trip to Florence, Italy, and I asked him,

“What would be a good way to stay in contact with you?”

“Get a Facebook account and request to add me as a ‘friend’,” he replied.

“What about using MySpace?” I suggested.

“No, you want to get on Facebook,” he confidently told me.

So, in 2008, I became another profile face on Facebook.

Navigating around Facebook reminded me of the late 1980s when I was a member of the dial-up commercial computer bulletin board service (BBS) called “Prodigy.”

During the 1980s and through much of the ‘90s, popular nationwide dial-up computer bulletin board services included Prodigy, America Online, and CompuServe.

Prodigy’s BBS used a colorful graphical user interface requiring the installation of their client software (from floppy disks) onto our computers.

Its services offered participation in exchanging thoughts and opinions in user forums on various subjects and included regularly updated news, weather, sports, and online shopping.

Prodigy sent me a complimentary porcelain coffee mug shaped like a computer terminal screen and keyboard, which I thought looked pretty cool.

Prodigy began in 1984 (has it been 38 years?), and by 1990, it had grown to over 465,000 subscribers, making it the second-largest online service behind CompuServe.

I was surprised to learn CompuServe was started in 1969 by Jeffrey Wilkins in Columbus, OH, to computerize his father-in-law’s insurance company. 

In 1979, CompuServe launched what many consider the first consumer online dial-up information service.

In addition to Prodigy, I also belonged to the America Online (AOL) dial-up site, which began in 1985.

Prodigy provided a gateway, a door, for us to access the internet. As a result, I regularly used this social media site for internet access during the early '90s.

CompuServe and other online services also provided a gateway to the internet.

In 1994, Prodigy was one of the first dial-up services offering subscribers access to the World Wide Web (web) over the internet using its web browser version.

As technology improved during the 1990s, many of us found it unnecessary to use a dial tone telephone line and computer modem for accessing online services like Prodigy or CompuServe to get on the internet and access the web.

We installed software web browsers called NCSA Mosaic, Internet Explorer, and Netscape Navigator on our computers to surf the web using competitive Internet Service Providers.

We moved from dial-up and began using faster speed “always-on” internet connections like the local telephone company's DSL (Digital Subscriber Line).

By 1995, cable company networks began offering the public a direct internet connection using a cable modem.

Jumping ahead to 2008, I used Facebook to regularly update my status, post photos, and share and catch up on the latest news and goings-on with others.

I also communicated with my son in Italy and still have a Facebook “thumbs up” coffee mug.

In early 2009, I talked over the phone about Facebook with former Herald Journal & Enterprise Dispatch editor Lynda Jensen, whom I spoke with regularly while writing my columns.

Our conversations usually ended up exchanging humorous commentaries and much laughter.

“You know Lynda, it would be good if you got an account on Facebook, it would be fun,” I said.

She hesitated and then began asking me many questions about it as a good journalist does. 

Lynda then told me she would think about it.

Shortly afterward, she got her account, and we became “Facebook Friends,” extending our playful back-and-forth conversational bantering into the online world.

We posted photos and links to interesting stories and shared humorous commentaries on Facebook for a little over a year.

Lynda said that she found her best friend from college, her pastor, a former co-worker, and other people she knew because of Facebook.

She also wrote a couple of columns about her adventures using Facebook.

Lynda’s March 2, 2009 column is titled: “Dragged into the 21st Century” and can be read at https://bit.ly/3FMs4AB.

The following week, she wrote: “Hacking my way through the digital jungle on Facebook,”  which you will find at https://bit.ly/3yKDC5X.

Lynda passed away in 2010, and I miss her very much.

So, here we are in 2022, and the global online community keeps growing. 

Once called “virtual digital communities,” online social media sites are venues where we network with others. But, of course, one cannot be sure whether we always communicate with another human or sometimes a software bot agent.

I assume others, along with me, find nostalgia in remembering the early days of using a telephone line and modem for dialing into a computer bulletin board service and engaging in learning and camaraderie.

Today, people regularly use online social media for work, education, shopping, newsgathering, and, on occasion, playful bantering with friends and family.

I took this photo of the two coffee mugs I referenced in the article

The ancestor of computer-aided design

© Mark Ollig

A computing inflection moment in time is when past technologies converge and become the foundation for future growth and discovery.

One of these moments began 60 years ago when Ivan Sutherland attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and began researching human-computer interaction, which became the basis of his doctoral degree.

He designed and created computer software called, Sketchpad.

By 1963, Sutherland had completed his MIT thesis titled “Sketchpad, A Man-Machine Graphical Communication System.”

It has been acknowledged that Sketchpad strongly influenced the course of human-computer interaction using graphical interfaces, vector graphics, object-oriented programming, and computer-aided design (CAD).

Sutherland operated his Sketchpad software program using MIT’s Lincoln TX-2, a transistor-based computer constructed in 1956 at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, MA.

I watched a 1963 MIT video demonstration of the graphical language Sketchpad.

A person seated at a TX-2 computer console demonstrated Sketchpad using a light pen (think stylus) on the round display screen.

The light pen is an input device in the form of a light-sensitive wand that allows the user to draw, point to, and activate any specific dots or objects on the computer display screen.

It is similar to using a finger on a touch screen, but a light pen has greater positional accuracy.

The 1963 video describes how in the past, problem-solving required a person to understand what the problem was and the steps needed to solve it, detailing the problem using punch cards and typewriting commands into the computer, which was used as a “very elaborate calculating machine.”

Sketchpad makes the computer work more as a human assistant, in which it seemingly has more intelligence — although it does not. The computer’s intelligence is derived from the Sketchpad software, making it more tolerant and flexible for error correction.

Next, a demonstration of the TX-2 computer using Sketchpad was presented at MIT Lincoln Laboratory by Timothy Johnson of MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Johnson was seated at the computing console. He described the various input/output devices, magnetic tape storage media, toggle switches, and the round display screen he called a “scope” (oscilloscope).

He began the demonstration of Sketchpad using an electronic light pen to draw on the glass surface of the computer screen.

Using the light pen, he began by drawing two-dimensional straight lines and circles starting and stopping from specific positions on the screen, which the computer geographically locates and remembers.

The computer understands and remembers the geometrical radius angles of the drawings.

Johnson explained how the computer could execute a constraint command to satisfy any anomalies in a drawing, such as if two lines needed to be joined.

He also loaded a previously created drawing onto the screen from the computer memory and overlaid it with an existing drawing diagram.

Johnson said Sutherland expanded the Sketchpad program so it could draw in three dimensions.

This program was accessed from the magnetic tape and loaded into the computer.

Next, the screen displayed a single three-dimensional box in four separate views with one marked T (top view), F (front view), S (side view), and one marked F and S.

The drawings were seen on the screen (simulating how they would appear on paper), as would a mechanical drawing, with a movable F/S box diagram for perspective.

Johnson then began drawing a simple house schematic on the screen using lines with the light pen.

Then, he displayed previously created Sketchpad drawings stored in the computer’s memory of three-dimensional solid objects such as various-sized wood shapes and windows for home construction a design engineer could use.

Besides designing structures, Johnson also demonstrated the creation of components used with electrical engineering diagrams on the computer screen.

The program could also zoom in and out on the graphics being displayed.

Ivan Sutherland’s Sketchpad is a computer-human interactive graphical algorithm program that laid the groundwork for today’s computer-aided design, object-oriented documentation, and 3D graphic visual computer engineering software.

With Sketchpad, a person could draw shapes on a computer screen for the first time.

Sutherland discovered the need to create new technical terms describing specific computer interactions using Sketchpad.

MIT’s TX-2 computer is impressive in its own right. Publicly introduced in 1958, it became known for its role in advancing artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction.

On March 22, 1994, Ivan Sutherland spoke during the Bay Area Computer History Perspectives lecture series held at Sun Microsystems in Mountain View, CA.

In 1963, Sutherland received his Doctor of Philosophy degree from MIT in Computer Science and Engineering.

In 1988, Ivan Sutherland received the Turing Award from the Association for Computing Machinery for the invention of Sketchpad.

He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Sciences.

In 2012 Sutherland was awarded the Kyoto Prize in Advanced Technology for “pioneering achievements in the development of computer graphics and interactive interfaces.”

Sketchpad has been described as one of the most influential computer programs ever written.

It was years ahead of its time and is credited as the foundation for today’s computing graphics, graphical user interface, and CAD programs.

Ivan Edward Sutherland, called the Father of Computer Graphics, was born in Hastings, NE, and turns 84 on May 16.

Using a light pen on the computer screen to create graphic diagrams using the
Sketchpad program on the MIT TX-2.
(1962/1963)

Statista computing statistics and more

© Mark Ollig

“Laptops to overtake desktops by 2010” was the lead from the Sept. 24, 2007, Bits and Bytes column.

So, here we are nearly 15 years later, and I can happily report back, per our friends at Statista, that in 2010 a total of 201 million laptop computers and 157 million desktop computers were shipped worldwide.

Yes, another prediction accurately fulfilled by this humble columnist.

Of course, it comes as no surprise mobile laptops would become more popular than stationary desktop computers.

In 2010, the buzz regarding large-screen tablet computers began, as folks were anxious to have them.

The first-generation Apple iPad prototype model was the 2009 K48AP. Its back case engraving showed the Apple logo.

The K48AP prototype unit included 2 GB (gigabyte) of data storage capacity and would boot up (initialize) using Apple’s Switchboard launch utility software.

Jan. 27, 2010, Steve Jobs, then Apple’s chief executive officer, revealed the iPad tablet computer to the public.

The first generation iPad used the A4 system-on-a-chip microprocessor designed by semiconductor company PA Semi, which Apple Computer acquired for $278 million in 2008.

April 3, 2010, the iPad became available and sold three million units in the first 80 days.

In 2010, 19 million tablet computers were shipped worldwide, with 9.7 million sold in the US.

Apple’s iPad accounted for 8.8 million of the computer tablet sales in 2010.

The success of the iPad soon triggered other high-profile electronics manufacturers such as Samsung, RIM (Research in Motion — the creator of the BlackBerry), and HP (Hewlett-Packard) to manufacture tablet computers. Still, none could match the popularity of Apple’s iPad with the public.

As of 2021, an estimated 350 million Apple iPad tablets have been sold worldwide, per Statista, while other sources report 425 million Apple iPad tablets of various model sizes sold.

It’s been regularly reported that Henry Edward Roberts, who designed the Altair 8800 Computer, coined “personal computer” in 1975.

I did some research and found the Star Tribune (Minneapolis) newspaper from Feb. 18, 1970, with the words “Your Personal Computer” in a Northwestern Bell telephone advertisement describing “7 Exciting Program Ideas.”

The ad said a Northwestern Bell telephone company representative would come and speak to any local club or group about their telephone service.

 “An inside look at how the telephone company uses computers in its day-to-day operations. In addition, you’ll learn how your own phone acts like a computer in the nationwide telephone system,” the advertisement stated.

The bold wording “Your Personal Computer” appeared under the drawing of a telephone and some electronic printed circuit boards.

In 1970, it may have been unknowingly envisioned how a telephone would evolve into a digital smart device and become a node within the high-speed computer network of the future — our future.

I suppose it only makes sense an old telephone guy like myself would find the term “personal computer” in a 52-year-old newspaper advertisement from a telephone company.

In 2021, computing manufacturers shipped 348 million PCs (personal computers), 277 million laptops, 160 million tablets, and 1.6 billion mobile phones worldwide.

The top computers sold in 2021 were: Lenovo, HP, Dell, Apple, ASUS, and Acer.

According to Statista, PC revenue for this year is estimated to be $64.7 billion, and by 2026 will be $66 billion.

The dollars spent worldwide on IoT (Internet of Things) devices and technology will reach an estimated $1.1 trillion in 2023.

IoT refers to digital appliances, devices, and technology inside homes and businesses controlled through a computer’s internet connection or an app on a smartphone.

The number one reason for growing IoT sales with businesses and consumers is increased security.

IoT technology and devices have become popular worldwide. Its technology is used in visual doorbell systems, programming thermostats, controlling lighting, televisions, automobiles, and virtually hundreds of other uses.

Reports said in 2020, nearly 37 percent of households in the US-owned a smart home device. In addition, an estimated 66.3 million US households will own an internet-connected IoT smart device this year.

IoT smart-home systems include the Google Nest Hub Assistant, the Amazon Alexa Smart Home, and the Ring Home Security System, which one of the folks I work with use.

As for me, I am still using the Google Nest Hub.

As of 2021, the most commonly owned intelligent devices in the US were smart TVs, innovative home systems, and various digital streaming devices.

The number of intelligent home systems installed in the US is estimated at 95 million units this year.

By 2025, revenue sales in the US of smart home IoT devices will reach $47 billion. The same year will see a projected 131 million computers being used.

In 2025, households throughout North America will be using an estimated 164 million personal computers.

What will North America, US, and worldwide computing revenue sales and hardware statistics be at the end of the next 15 years?

Hopefully, you will be reading about it in one of my 2037 columns.

Stay tuned.

Star Tribune (Minneapolis) newspaper from Feb. 18, 1970.