mgardi@watdcsu.UUCP (11/18/87)
I have logged onto CompuServe a couple of times lately, and they are all excited about a bit-map graphics standard they have developed called 'GIF' (Pronounced 'Jif') The acronym stands for 'Graphics Interchange Format' (surprisingly enough). GIF allows for full-color bitmaps, up to 16,000 bits square. Color values are given in terms of standard RGB values. Anyway, would the net as a whole be interested in adopting a standard such as GIF, which would allow a wide variety of graphics hardware access to a large supply of bitmap pictures, clip-art, etc. ? CompuServe have GIF decoders/encoders for IBM (cga/ega/vga), Macintosh, Amiga, Atari ST, and possibly others. One of the advantages of the GIF standard is that it uses a type of Lempel-Ziv compression, typical compression of a standard ST 32k picture results in a 10k file -- not too bad. In an effort to establish GIF as a standard, CompuServe says that the format is public domain, and that they are providing assistance to some 50 third-party software developers to get the ball rolling. They also say that they will be providing stock performance charts, weather maps, NASA photos, etc by the end of the year. If people are interested, I can post what I know about the format. Note that I am not necessarily proposing that the net adopts 'GIF' -- I'm sure that there are other formats that merit attention. Just a thought, David Rowley -- Mutual Life of Canada -- Waterloo, Ontario UUCP: ...utzoo!watmath!watdcsu!mgardi