{"id":928,"date":"2012-12-17T07:00:38","date_gmt":"2012-12-17T12:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/?p=928"},"modified":"2012-12-17T09:26:01","modified_gmt":"2012-12-17T14:26:01","slug":"retro-gif-of-the-week-christmas-fireplace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/archives\/928\/retro-gif-of-the-week-christmas-fireplace","title":{"rendered":"[ Retro GIF of the Week ]<\/span> Christmas Fireplace"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Christmas<\/a>Click to see other views of this image: [ Original Size<\/a> ] [ 2X Zoom<\/a> ] [ 3X Zoom<\/a> ]<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Among the few GIF files I saved in the early 1990s (outside of those uploaded to by BBS), this warm, inviting Christmas scene remains one of my favorites.<\/p>\n

In the image, we see a living room with a roaring fireplace bedecked with four Christmas stockings, a richly ornamented Christmas tree presiding over a large pile of presents, and a holly wreath over the mantle. Two candles flickering above the fireplace add an extra detail that completes the picture of a perfect holiday scene.<\/p>\n

As the years have passed, I have forgotten where I acquired this GIF file, labeled XMASTR.GIF. I revisit this image every now and then, and I always wonder about its origins. Now is as good a time as any to look into them.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

My first clue is the file date. After poking around one of my old hard drives (from which I recovered this GIF), it looks like the GIF’s December 11, 1994 date is likely the date I downloaded this image from CompuServe or a BBS. Since it wasn’t sorted with my other BBS files, I think I got it from CompuServe.<\/p>\n

We can discern more about its origins by examining the color depth (number of bits per pixel) and color resolution (number of possible colors in the image palette). I peeked into the GIF file’s header information with a hex editor and discovered that it used a 512 color palette. As it turns out, a 320×200 image in 16-colors with a 512 color palette is more or less unique to the Atari 520\/1040STf platform.<\/p>\n

That means that the artist probably created this image during the heyday of the Atari ST, which I would roughly estimate to be from 1985-1990. Either way, we have a hard limit of 1985 at the earliest (the date of the Atari 520 ST’s introduction) and 1994 at the latest (from the file date).<\/p>\n

Along the way — some time after 1987 (the creation year of the first GIF standard) — someone converted an original Atari ST image format into GIF and uploaded it to whatever service I downloaded it from (likely CompuServe).<\/p>\n

We also have are the initials of the artist — “DAF” — in the lower right corner of the image. Through Google searches, I found Atari ST-related posts by a computer scientist named Daniel A. Ford (initials D.A.F.) from a 1987 Usenet archive. On a whim, I emailed him just a few days ago and asked if he is the author of the image. He said no.<\/p>\n

So for now I’ve hit a dead end. Perhaps the identity of DAF will emerge some day. Even if it doesn’t, we can still enjoy this festive holiday scene.<\/p>\n

[ Wondering what a GIF is? Read the introduction to this column<\/a>. ]<\/em><\/small><\/center><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Retro GIF of the Week Fact Box<\/strong><\/font><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Source File Name:<\/font><\/strong><\/small><\/td>\nXMASTR.GIF<\/font><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Source File Date:<\/font><\/strong><\/small><\/td>\nDecember 11, 1994<\/font><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Source File Format:<\/font><\/strong><\/small><\/td>\nGIF – 87a (non-interlaced)<\/font><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Dimensions:<\/font><\/strong><\/small><\/td>\n320 x 200 pixels<\/font><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Color Depth
(bits per pixel):<\/font><\/strong><\/small><\/td>\n		4-bit (16 color)<\/font><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Color Resolution
(palette size):<\/font><\/strong><\/small><\/td>\n		9-bit (512 colors)<\/font><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Origin Platform:<\/font><\/strong><\/small><\/td>\nAtari ST<\/font><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Derived From:<\/font><\/strong><\/small><\/td>\nUnknown<\/font><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Creation Date:<\/font><\/strong><\/small><\/td>\n1985 or later, likely late 1980s<\/font><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Artist:<\/font><\/strong><\/small><\/td>\nDAF<\/font><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\nIf you know more about the origin of this image, please leave a comment.<\/font><\/small>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click to see other views of this image: [ Original Size ] [ 2X Zoom ] [ 3X Zoom ] Among the few GIF files I saved in the early 1990s (outside of those uploaded to by BBS), this warm, inviting Christmas scene remains one of my favorites. In the image, we see a living […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,7,27,47,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-computer-info-and-history","category-regular_features","category-retro-gif-of-the-week","category-computers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/928\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}