9/19/2023 0 Comments Choosy programmers choose gif![]() ![]() There were no/few good portable graphics formats. People wanted to share pictures, display online-shopping catalogs, weather maps, etc. The information service was moving beyond a text-based, menu-driven system (I like curses and termcap as much as the next guy, but hey.). In the world of the mid 80s there were IBM PCs, Apple Macs (classic), Amigas, Atari-STs, CoCos, and yes, Apple-IIs and Commodor-68s. It’s often the incidentals that you are remembered for. Things that got out GIFīe careful what you do and say. Single-handed technical virtuosity could not fix the one that didn’t.Īnd there was this little side project called GIF. He was also pulled into the WOW project which was supposed to be the AOL killer when it became apparent that /CompuServe needed an AOL killer./ One of those projects succeeded. Later on (after my time) Steve as pulled into major projects to support the back end processing for H&R Blocks’s TaxCut program when online tax-filing was a new thing. Marketing did not want to release my web browser. Somewhere in there, there was a graphics library and enough pieces that I was able to write a web browser that worked inside WinCIM, that would have allowed CompuServe users without an Internet connection (most everyone then) to browse the web. He later used that as the substrate for WinCIM, the graphical interface to the information service that he created which kept the company going for a while in the face of the likes of AOL. This was all in an environment where 9600 baud modems were considered “fast”. On top of that, Steve created the HMI (Host Micro Interface) protocol that rode on top of CompuServe “B-Protocol” to allow API driven interactions with the information service (the alternative being text/command line interfaces). There were ports and hacks to various tools such as FINE (Fine Is Not Emacs), a C compiler, DEC Runoff, laser printer support, source code control systems, etc. There was a full-fledged database system written in there somewhere I think. I worked on BTOOLS, and SKIMAN (Single Key Index Access Manager), a B-Tree library Steve had created. These were partially in support of CompuServe’s pre-information-service time-sharing services supported by a homegrown packet-switched networking. He had just /given up on writing at DEC10 ADA compiler/ (Steve is still writing ADA software), and was just beginning to embrace PCs as “real computers” worthy of his attention, had written a FORTRAN compiler, a BASIC compiler and associated run-time systems, and a run-time library for BLISS called BTOOLS. Steve ran the languages and tools group when I arrived. I’m sure there was much more that I missed. My view of his programming output comes largely from 1985-1995. I was fortunate enough to start my career working with/for him. Steve worked at CompuServe (and successors) from 1970 to 2001. I was privileged to have a front row seat to watch a master at work.Īdapted from a blog post I wrote after the CompuServe 50th Anniversary Reunion. Steve Wilhite is best remembered as the creator of GIF, but he spent 30 years writing piles of amazing software which helped set the stage for the Web. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |